How popular is your blog?

I'm sure that all avid bloggers would love to see more visitors to their blog. But with the onslaught of so many new blogs it is difficult to maintain popularity among readers. How does one make his blog popular? Dave Pollard believes that he has an answer to this question. In his article titled "What makes a blog popular?" he simplifies the popularity formula down to 12 criteria. He believes that a blog will gain popularity if it is

1. Engaging
2. Accessible
3. Useful
4. Original
5. Uses images effectively
6. Thoughtful and thought-provoking
7. Generous
8. Focusing on what's important
9. Positive
10. Credible
11. Just the right length
12. Honest

The criteria are explained in more detailed in Pollard's article so I am not going to do it here. Pollard has collected these criteria from reader feedback and sifted out the most commonly mentioned aspects. Pollard also points out the importance of readability which can be measured with the Flesch–Kincaid Readability Tests. If you want to see some test results then I recommend taking a look at Priit's blog. He has done a pretty good summary but I'm not sure how relevant the results are for blogs in Estonian.

In our CSC course we were asked to analyze some blogs based on Pollard's article. I am not going to do that because I don't really agree with Pollard. At least I don't agree with all 12 of his criteria. Instead of analyzing other blogs I will go through the criteria and provide my own view on this subject.

I agree with Pollard that blogs should be written in an easy to read and understandable manner (criteria 1 and 2). If a posting is difficult to read you will soon get bored and tired of it. The relevance of all the other criteria depend on the subject and content of the blog and their relevance is questionable. They are surely not the popularity formula for all blogs and mostly depend on the preferences of the reader.

There are plenty of good and popular blogs that do not contain a great deal of useful or practical information. This includes blogs that provide snippets of information for amusement or entertainment. Usefulness is in itself a good thing but not necessarily something that is vital for a blog to become popular. Blogs that provide analysis and opinions about theories and/or political views don't offer anything practical. For example Vabalog is a blog that is very thoughtful and thought-provoking but not necessarily practical.

Originality is a very good aspect in a blog but again many popular blogs are just collections of news and links to other sites with some short commentary or opinions. Take for example Gizmodo which is among the most popular blogs. Not much original content but very interesting and popular nonetheless.

I agree with Pollard that the effective use of pictures does add quality to a blog but if you use too many pictures or images that are not relevant to the subject it could disturb the reader. It's always nice to have some pictures but if the subject itself (e.g. political analysis) does not require any illustration then the use of no pictures at all could be concidered "effective use". It's sometimes better to leave out the picture if it's a generic image from the MS Office clip art collection.

Thoughtful and thought-provoking is a criteria I also agree with. Blogs should make you think about something. It doesn't have to be serious it can just be something funny but the more it makes you think the better.

According to Pollard the criterion Generous means "Respectful, giving, modest, no bullshit or condescension." This probably rules out many blogs which provide commentary in the form of jokes and/or satire. Why do we still have comic strips in newspapers (and online) that make fun of public figures and everyday life? Surely they would have been trashed and forgotten long ago if they were not popular.

Focusing on what's important is a good idea for bloggers who want to write news stories. In other cases I think that it's entirely up to the blogger to decide what is important and what is not. Pollard elaborates that the blog should "ask and answer the questions others are asking themselves." Who do you write for? Yourself or for others?

Another criteria that I don't take very seriously is that blogs should be "positive." There are so many subjects that are serious and not very "positive". Take for example the North Korea Zone blog which provides news and analysis of developments in North Korea. The posts are often scary and not very upbeat. Does this make the blog less popular? Maybe for Pollard but not for me. I don't want everything I read in a blog to make me "feel good, empowered" as Pollard puts it. Life is not positive all the time, there are ups and downs, strikes and gutters. That's what makes it interesting.

Just the right length is such a vague criteria that it could be applied to almost any posting depending on the content.

Credibility and honesty are important. Here I agree with Pollard 100% and I would like to see more blogs taking note of this.

All in all I think that Pollard's formula for "popularity" can only be applied to his own and other very similar blogs. In my opinion blogging is all about content and whether or not the writer knows what he is writing about. It's not necessarily about what kind of pictures you use, how long the posts are, how good you think they make others feel or how practical the subject. If you are passionate about what you write and you can express yourself fairly decently then you have the ingredients for a popular blog as long as there are other people out there who share the same interests.

VR applications

As an assignment in our Alternative Input & Output Devices course we had to outline some real-life applications of Virtual Reality. I decided to do a fairly basic overview of the major fields where VR is used. If interested you can download the PDF (1 MB). Image courtesy of Barco.

Presentation about Design as Interactivity

Here you can view a PDF version of my short presentation about Design as Interactivity for the Interface & Interactivity Design course.

My main goal was to give an overall picture of what is Interactivity Design and why is it important?

A PowerPoint presentation file can also be downloaded here.

Social networks assignment

For our assignment in the Communities and Social Software course we had to compare 3 social networking sites and outline their main target groups, main activities, special traits, controversial issues and best/worst features. For this purpose I have chosen to give a short overview of Orkut.com, MySpace.com and Tribe.net.

Orkut

The definition of Orkut.com according to their own website is the following:

Orkut is an online community website designed for friends. The main goal of our service is to make your social life, and that of your friends, more active and stimulating. orkut's social network can help you both maintain existing relationships and establish new ones by reaching out to people you've never met before.

According to Orkut people use the network for four main reasons: friends, activity partners, business networking and dating. Statistics compiled by Orkut indicate that the vast majority, 75% are using the network for friends and only 18% are interested in dating. The other two aforementioned reasons for using Orkut have been selected by about 25% of users.

I think the number one reason why people join orkut is to get an answer to one of the most important social questions of all time – who knows who? This is also evident in the statistical numbers mentioned above. When you have many friends with an orkut account this can be lots of fun. It can also be quite entertaining to check out profiles of people you haven’t personally met to see if they know any of your close friends.

Orkut also comes in handy when you meet somebody for the first time. At first you really don’t know anything about the person but if he/she has an Orkut profile you can go online and get some sort of an overview of the person’s background and social network (at least the way they want you to see it) . It might just happen that a friend of yours knows this person. Companies reviewing job applications have also discovered this neat little source of info and some of them are using Orkut to gather additional background information before inviting a person to a job interview.

In Orkut you can create a very detailed profile of yourself indicating your likes and dislikes in a wide variety of topics ranging from sexual preference to your favorite book. You can specify exactly how much information is displayed to your friends and how much is shown to those who are not on your friends list. The process of joining Orkut however has a slight catch to it – you have to be invited to join by a member of the Orkut network. It’s impossible to join without an invitation and you cannot get access to the network without joining. This makes Orkut a somewhat closed community.

Another social element of Orkut is the ability to join communities with specific interests. You can even start your own community if you wish. These communities show up on your profile and give additional clues about your personality.

There is also a rating system built into Orkut (e.g. you can rate how “cool” or “sexy” a person is) but it is quite minimal and not the main focus of Orkut. You can comment other people by writing so-called “scraps” about them on their profile page but this has become a tool for spammers as well.

As with any system that collects personal information and displays it to others privacy is a very big concern for Orkut. Many people remain wary of the service due to it’s openness. Christopher Allan gives a pretty good overview of why he remains insecure about Orkut in one of his blog postings.

Orkut also has a darker side which is basically a reflection of the unpleasant part of our communities. There have been cases where Orkut has been used for distributing child pornography and racist materials. Orkut has even been involved in the dealing of illegal drugs in Brazil as can be read from this BBC article.

MySpace

MySpace.com has most of Orkut’s features and some additional one’s as well. MySpace defines itself as “an online community that lets you meet your friends' friends.” Unlike Orkut you don’t need an invitation to sign up for the service and MySpace profiles can be viewed by anybody including those who don’t have an account. However you do have the option of disabling anonymous users access to your profile and allowing only your friends to view your personal information.

Compared with Orkut MySpace offers a lot more freedom to customize your profile. In Orkut everybody has a generic looking profile page where you fill in information about yourself in predefined areas and you can only upload picture. MySpace on the other hand gives you more flexibility by allowing you to change the colors and background image, add animated graphics, photos, videos and sounds.

In addition to displaying your personal information MySpace allows you to promote your own music, events and films on special sections of their site. Many independent bands are actively using the social networking site to advertise their music. There is also a classifieds sections where you can post your own ads or browse them according to their geographic location and category. The list of services offered by MySpace goes on further with TV on-demand, blogging, mail and instant messaging. MySpace can be described as an internet entertainment hub.

The amount of customization offered by MySpace is probably the reason why it doesn’t appeal to me as a social networking site. Having browsed the network a bit it seems that many users tend to get carried away with customizing their profile with all sort of sounds, videos, flashing animations and big background pictures. Embedding your favorite music video in your profile page also raises copyright issues. Recently Universal Music expressed it’s concern over copyright violations and might even file a lawsuit against MySpace.

Like all social networks MySpace has many possibilities for abuse. There is actually a website www.myspace-danger.org that is devoted to educating the public about the dangers of MySpace. The site outlines many cases where MySpace has been used to commit sex offence crimes, identity theft, child pornography, racism etc. Luckily the police have also begun to use the network for catching online predators.

Tribe

Tribe.com is social networking site that is oriented mainly towards interest groups. Sure you can link to your friends and see who they are linked to similarly to Orkut and MySpace but the concept of Tribe is focused mainly on building small communities called (surprise-surprise) “tribes”. This is probably the main difference between Tribes and the other two social networking sites covered by this short essay.

Tribe defines itself as “a free online community where members share discussions, pictures, reviews and more. Tribes also promote listings and events to interested members.”

Similarly to MySpace users can sign up without an invitation. Once you have created a profile you can easily find a “tribe” that interest you and join in discussions, read reviews, listings and browse pictures related with a particular tribe.

Similarly to MySpace you have a lot of freedom to display different kinds of information on your profile page (you can put up photos, poems, videos etc.) but the overall design cannot be changed and hence it looks a bit better than MySpace. It actually does not offer anything unique but I think it is easier to make new friends on the Tribe network because it is not focused on the individual as much as Orkut and Myspace.

Conclusion

Social networking sites are becoming increasingly more popular and there is plenty to choose from. The question is which network to join? The deciding factor will probably be your existing friends and their choice of networks. A lot of my friends were Orkut users before me and that is why I joined Orkut. There are also more Estonian users in Orkut than in MySpace and Tribe.

I like Orkut because it is simple and does not try to be anything other than a social networking site. In my opinion MySpace already has too many services/options and seems rather chaotic. Tribe is a lot more focused and bears a closer resemblance to Orkut. If my main goal was to find new friends online (regardless of geographic location) I would probably prefer Tribe.net. Another advantage of Orkut is the lack of advertising. MySpace and especially Tribes display advertisements on most of their pages.

Orkut is a good way of getting more information about my existing friends and new one’s that I meet personally. Because I don’t like making new contacts online and I like to focus mainly on my existing network of friends Orkut is probably the best choice for me.

First Post

This blog has mainly been created to serve as an output channel for thoughts & ideas associated with all kinds of new & interactive media during my IMKE master studies at the Tallinn University. Comments of all kind are welcome...