Sep 1, 2007 | blog
I started thinking a bit after Robert Scoble’s (yeah I know I reference Robert a lot) Kyte video post about his blog of the future. While I may disagree with a few of his concepts, the whole concept of what a future blog may look like got my mind racing in new directions.
The problem that I think we have in many blogs, is the lack of white space which I know is not a new discussion point for many bloggers. The difficulty comes in the tools that we use in combination with most peoples skill in design. Helping the blogger (beginner and experienced) with some additional pre-packaged design elements that fit the majority of styles that a person may choose from would go a long way to improving this situation.
- Configurable Text Boxes that can be placed in a post by the blogger. These boxes would act similar to placing a picture and allow the blogger to set it to the left/center/right and allow text to flow around it. It would have selectable edges (rounded/square), alpha blending borders and background, and allow for different fonts. Possibly accommodate different shapes for the box (circle, square, rectangle, octagon, triangle, etc…).
- Standardized Font “Module” System similar in concept to TrueType or PostScript in the desktop publishing industry, standardized fonts that could easily be added to the blog.
- Standardized XML framework to more easily create customized or customizable Widgets.
- Integrate common technologies like Lightbox into the rendering engine of the blog software so there is less need for users to have to manually enhance their blogs with these add on’s, plug ins, or by having to edit code.
- Use existing research on how people view/read blogs and apply those learning’s to the default layouts, templates and themes that come “in the box”.
- Standardize an Ad Engine API that would allow bloggers to plug in standardized Ad modules from the major ad engines out there. Accommodate, in-line text ads, context-sensitive ads, text-link ads, banner ads, skyscraper ads, etc… Make it easy for the blogger to more cleanly integrate the ads from any vendor. This would also make it easy for ad vendors to integrate with any blog software.
- A standardized tagging engine provided as open source. Get an open source library of standard tags that are either automatically attached to a post, recommended to the blogger, or that could be manually selected. We have too many people creating similar but different tags out there.
- Easily customizable HTML tag styles on a panel in the blog management interface that allows the blogger to more easily customize the “a href”, “img src”, and “abbr title” HTML styles (formatting). Make it easy for bloggers to pick the border, background, text, color, and so on. Allow them to set their selections to override the installed theme’s CSS for these tags.
Well those are my suggestions to help build the blog of the future. I personally believe that the basic layout of a blog is well defined and has little room for improvement. The basic idea of a top banner and a single column of content arranged in reverse chronological order (newest at the top, oldest at the bottom) is hard to beat.
It’s in the themes, bling or “farkles”, badges, advertising, and add-on’s that we all add to our blogs that tend to detract from the readability. Fancy graphics and animations may be “cool” but the pictures and code take time to download – even in our increasingly highly-connected broadband world. Glossy, intricate interfaces are wonderful for local high-powered devices like PCs and phones. However, any time you need to pull the bulk of the site’s rendering media and content across a connection, it’s better to keep it simple and effective (i.e. elegant).
There is more, a lot more, that we all need to start tossing on the pile of ideas for the blog of the future. I’m an IT geek that always thinks about the technical part, but that’s a small portion of what makes a blog a blog.
What are your needs for your blog going into the future? What needs aren’t being addressed today? What are your ideas to make a better blog?
Update: Well, I guess I’m not the only one thinking about fonts on the web. This article over at A List Apart, covers this idea in more on CSS3. I also didn’t realize that CSS has been around for a decade! 😛
Photo credit, Kris Kros
Technorati tags: Blog, Blogging, Blog of the future, Robert Scoble
Aug 31, 2007 | blog
Well, Blog Day 2007 is finally upon us. If you hadn’t heard about Blog Day previously, here’s a recap.
What is BlogDay?
BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.
With the goal in mind, on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs.
So I’ve chosen to participate this year, and I’ve got five blogs that I had previously not followed before, so their new to me. I also tried to find blogs that are outside my normal genre of choice, but I was not able to do that for all of them. Here we go:
- Blogumentary by Chuck Olsen – Blogumentary is a video blog by Minneapolis video blogger Chuck Olsen. Like many blogs, the content varies by day and by the bloggers inputs for the day.
- Helmet Hair Blog by Jesper Bram – Blog about motorcycles and motorcycling. Jesper rides, reviews, gives opinions and suggestions on his favorite topic.
- Wine Library TV by Gary Vaynerchuk – A blog dedicated to changing the world of wine. With a very passionate and animated host (Gary Vaynerchuk) WLTV is a video blog that hopes to include you in the new wine world.
- Jason Langridge (Mr. Mobile) – Jason Langridge is a Microsoftie that works in their UK mobile division. I’ve found innumerable interesting tidbits on Windows Mobile and mobile communications in general.
- Fred File by Fred Thompson & Staff – Yes, this is a political blog for one possible republican candidate for the U.S. Presidency. I find it interesting to see how new media is being used by the current crop of candidates to reach out to voters in the upcoming 2008 election.
So that’s it. There’s my picks for Blog Day 2007, and I’d like your feedback on them.
Official Blog Day Website
Technorati tags: Blog Day 2007
Aug 30, 2007 | blog
Ok, yes this topic was tossed around a few days ago, and I only found the discussion yesterday. A lifestream is simply a page that aggregates your online works, be they blog posts, videos, pictures, comments, Facebook statuses, etc…
The ability to have one place where all your online contributions to “the great conversation” are kept in chronological order. Basically like a “river of news” format pioneered by Dave Winer.
Since a number of people, including Twitter budz Josh Bancroft (who started the idea), Dan York and Steve Rubel, have created one – I thought I’d play the follower here and give it a try. Using Tumblr, much as the rest have, I created my lifestream blog in about 5 minutes. Drop dead easy. An additional 15 minutes and I had lifestream.rickmahn.com set up to take you there.
One of the streams I want to add is my coComment feed. coComment is a comment tracking service, and does a pretty good job of it. The only problem is that the feed includes comments by other people who’ve commented on the same post. There is probably a way to disable that, or filter the other comments out – but I didn’t find it in the 5 minutes I allotted myself.
At any rate, I think that the lifestream idea has real value for anyone who is interested in what your perspectives are, or following you online. Below I’ve included some other bloggers that have commented on the idea or have created their own lifestream.
So I’m curious, what do you think of the lifestream idea?
Technorati tags: Blogging, Micro Blogging, Tumblr, Lifestream, Steve Rubel, Josh Bancroft, Dan York
Aug 29, 2007 | blog
I must say, I’m very honored to be invited to participate in Kent Newsome’s swivel feed experiment! This swivel feed experiment was designed by Kent to find new and interesting blogs to read. Yesterday, Kent invited an additional 12 bloggers to participate by recommending 5 bloggers for him to add to his feed list.
So without further ado, here are my five suggestions:
- Chris Cree
- Josh Bancroft
- Jim Long
- Chris Garrett
- Joanna Young
I just hope that my blogging pal Kent finds value in these new feeds. Also, if you are looking for some new bloggers to follow – please do check out his swivel feeds list as there are a huge number of blogs that you may not have found before. He also plans on publishing a final OPML
Thanks Kent!
Logo courtesy of Team Swivel 
on Flickr
Technorati tags: Kent Newsome, Swivel Feeds, Blog Recommendations
Aug 24, 2007 | blog
Kent Newsome tipped me off to what I’ve been striving for in the past month. Unique and interesting voices.
I’d rather read about someone’s day than yet another post raving about the latest social network or Facebook application. Nobody’s life is as boring as that. Like TDavid, I tend to choose interesting voices over interesting subject matter.
While I do enjoy reading about the latest social this & that, I also have been striving to find quality in the blogs that I read on a daily basis. I honestly have been trying to read the blogs and feeds that I follow – and of course there isn’t enough time in the day to get through it all.
So I’m still on my quest to find the my top bloggers in a wide range of topics that I’m interested in learning more about. One of them is Joanna Young over at Confident Writing. Her blog is interesting to me because thinking about writing itself is something that I haven’t done much of (and it probably shows 😉 ). This is one example of how a fresh voice helps you expand your horizons and grow as an individual & a writer.
On the flip side, I just added Jim Long’s Verge New Media blog. Yes, it talks about new media, but it comes from someone that has experience in “old media” and has jumped into the new media arena with both feet. I’ve had the opportunity to interact with newmediajim often on Twitter and always enjoyed the viewpoints and the exchange.
Anyway, as I continue to read feeds, I discover that I still am looking for more than news. Every time I run across a an interesting post, I make sure to go back to the original site, and sure enough – I’m missing something in the reader that is there on the blog.
I really like the beginning of one of Joanna’s posts that also follows my line of thinking on this.
Words are powerful things. Just think for a moment about the impact other people’s words have had on you, for good or ill – or what you might read into the words that someone else has written, however quickly and casually they might have been penned.
It’s these kinds of voices that I want to continue to find. One’s that continue to push my thinking and writing skills. My thanks to everyone out there contributing to the conversation (as Shel and Robert put it).
By the way – any suggestions for new voices? I’d be interested in hearing who you think I should check out.
Technorati tags: Blogging, Verge New Media, Confident Writing, Kent Newsome, Joanna Young, Jim Long, Shel Israel, Robert Scoble, Naked Conversations
