Content Writing & Copywriting Blog

Is it time to move from user-generated content to expert-generated content?

Mar 09, 2008 2 Comments »

Especially content to be used as critical reference like technical, historical and medical? Web 2.0 has been the era of user-generated content, may it be YouTube, the millions of blogs or MySpace. Social media took the Internet by storm and became the buzzword. There is nobody it seems who surfs the Internet and is not aware of some or the other social media or social networking website. Most of the content existing on social media websites and blogs is generated by the users, and not by "experts".

Websites like Wikipedia, where some of the users are also authors and editors, are being viewed suspiciously because sometimes they have erroneous information on them. This is also a reason why journalists tend to take bloggers lightly — they often complain that they (journalists) do all the hard work and bloggers keep commenting on them as "armchair journalists". Inaccuracies often creep up when the content is generated voluntarily, free of cost. The magnitude of the problem gets amplified when even the references used cannot be relied upon.

This is a problem discussed in detail at this link.

As usual I agree and disagree. Not all user-generated content is inferior and unreliable, and I personally believe content-quality is going to be self-sustaining, as more and more content is generated to generate advertising revenue. If your content is not reliable and cannot be trusted, sooner or later people will stop visiting your website or blog. Blogs and websites that depend on repeat visits will have to ensure quality and trust. The link above claims there are many inaccuracies at Wikipedia, but I think every kind of medium has its pluses and minuses. Nobody is suggesting that you derive nuclear science theories after taking references from Wikipedia. As a research tool you can begin with Wikipedia and then verify the information from other online and offline resources.

The same holds true for every kind of blog and website. You access the content, and if you need to verify then go to other resources available to you. This also holds true for information that exists outside of the realms of the Internet.

As far as blogging is concerned, I don’t think user-generated content here is just a passing phase. Blogging is not merely a publishing tool in the hands of the literate mob. It is going to stay, and advance, as one of the most potent communication tools the civilization has ever witnessed.

Should blog writers be paid for the work they do or for their performance

Mar 06, 2008 2 Comments »

In commercial blogging, what they call these days "pro-blogging" there is a very thin line that divides "writing" and "performance". Writing for blogs means simply generating content so that it can be published. Performing means, how much buzz individual blog posts can generate and how many page views or impressions can be generated for the blog as well as the advertisers advertising on that blog.

Gawker media, according to this post, pays its employees by their performance, not by virtue of being its employees; that means, you not only have to write content for Gawker media, you also have to write content that brings in more profit for the advertisers.

Is it right or wrong? Depends on the model your blog publishing is following. Your blog, in order to be profitable, surely has to generate traffic and traffic comes with high-quality content generation and non-stop promotion. Given that the writer produces high-quality content, whose work is it to promote the blog non-stop? Is it the employer’s job, that is Gawker media, or the writer’s job?

If the writer is supposed to generate traffic that isn’t Gawker media dumping the entire responsibility of the blog upon the writer who is just supposed to write quality content? I think for a writer who is hired to write blog content this can prove to be a great distraction. Promotion should be handled by another team and not by the writers.

Again, there is some content that can be easily promoted, for instance technology, gaming, programming, music, celebrity gossip, earning money, but other, less appealing subjects need strategic and targeted promotion. By solely holding the writer responsible for the page views the employer shrugs away from the responsibility. Would I take up such a job as a blog writer? Only if I’m paid lots of money (lots of money according to my standards). If I am both writing high quality content and promoting it I might as well run my own blog and earn greater rewards.

Should you display your RSS feeds counter on your blog?

Mar 04, 2008 No Comments »

This is the question dosh dosh is pondering over on his blog (he has the feeds counter displayed on his blog by the way). Why do people put their RSS feeds counter on the blogs? Is it to show off how many RSS subscribers your blog has? I don’t see anything wrong in such kind of show off.

Maki (he publishes dosh dosh) argues that he doesn’t want people to subscribe to his RSS feeds just because he has high number of RSS subscribers. I think displaying your RSS feeds counter makes good sense because it shows your visitors, especially the new visitors, how many people trust the content on your blog. Even initially if they subscribe to your RSS feeds just because they’re impressed by the number they will end up reading your posts eventually and I think this is good, isn’t it? You’re not misleading them; you are just trying to make sure they don’t miss the updates on your blog.

Blogging, written, textual blogging, is all about readership. The more readers you have the more successful your blog becomes, and the more successful your blog becomes, the better content (ideally) you want to present on your blog, the better the content on your blog, the greater is your readership. So it all becomes a cycle, and displaying your RSS feeds counter is just a small part in this whole entire big affair. Whether we like it or not there are a few people who are driven by numbers. There is nothing wrong in prompting them to subscribe because if they don’t like your content they will simply unsubscribe. So there is no harm putting your RSS feeds counter on your blog. What do you think?

Side note: instead of leaving comments on other blogs I have decided to create short blog posts on my blog with links to the posts I intended to leave comment on. This way I will be able to generate more content for this blog as well as send trackbacks to other blogs. Also I feel freer expressing my thoughts on my own blog rather than posting one-liners on other blogs. I won’t be doing it all the time but most of the time I will. Some blogs don’t publish trackbacks but still personally this seems to be a better idea.

How seriously should you take comments on your blog and on other blogs?

Mar 03, 2008 7 Comments »

A person is suspected to have committed suicide (I read it here) after a few scathing blog posts and subsequent vitriolic comments on the ways of his functioning. This reminds me of various blog posts and comments I have encountered during my blogging experience of 5 years, on other blogs, and sometimes on my own blogs. In fact, even my content writing website sometimes becomes target of vicious commenters. There was this person who would write to me every morning, with a different name, that my English is so pathetic that I should be ashamed of providing content writing services and charging for them.

You expose yourself to open assault when you share your thoughts, skills and services on the Internet simply because it is so easy to attack you; one just needs a computer with Internet connection and a browser. You can be attacked through your comment section or through a blog post on another blog. The content of such comments and blog posts can range from snide remarks, sudden outbursts of disagreement, outright insulting and even racial slights.

You have some degree of control on your comment section but you cannot control blog posts and comments appearing on other blogs. Even people whose posts and links end up on various social bookmarking websites like Digg become targets of very rude and ruthless remarks on their abilities. So how do you handle the attack if you are the target?

Have confidence in yourself

You are less prone to get affected by negative reactions if you have confidence in yourself. For instance I never even for once took that person’s advice to my heart (the one who said I shouldn’t offer professional content writing services). I’m not saying that my English is perfect and flawless but I know one thing, most of my clients are happy with the sort of content I provide. This was enough for me to ignore that person’s harangues.

While exchanging comment on other blogs be sure of what you are saying. If you know what you’re talking about you won’t get hurt; you will simply think that either there is a difference of opinion or they don’t understand what you’re trying to say so you should try again. Similarly when you are writing for your blog accept the fact that some people are going to oppose your ideas out of conviction and some are going to do it just because they have nothing better to do and they have no idea what they’re doing.

Be humble and ready to learn

Learning is something that never stops; you’re always learning and de-learning. The sky is not going to fall if someone criticizes you. Not many people are tactful but it doesn’t mean that they are always out to hurt you or insult you or show you down. Before feeling crestfallen after reading a negative comment just try to study it a bit; what is the intention of the person leaving the comment? Some people simply want you to improve and they just don’t know how to put it in better words. So whenever you encounter an adverse comment on your blog or another blog just try to see what is the intention.

Be an authority

Bloggers who have attained an authority are hard to criticize just for the heck of it because then the person who needlessly criticizes himself or herself becomes the target of the other readers. An authority also gives you confidence and clarity; you know your facts, deep down your heart you know whether the person is wrong or write and whether you need to learn something new.

Develop a thick skin

You need, definitely, a thick skin to interact on the Internet. Today I came across some online Hindustani vocal music tutorials on YouTube presented by an American lady. Of course she didn’t sound like a melody queen but it wasn’t that bad. Still people had left such hurting comments that a sensitive person would immediately take down all the videos. Fortunately the singer isn’t overly sensitive.

The thing is you cannot stop people from behaving the way they do. You can’t preach to them, you can’t talk sense into them, they are bad because they simply want to be bad. Some are even proud of their badness. Therefore if you want to survive on the online world you need to develop a thick skin.

Using Flickr to find great photographs for your blog

Mar 01, 2008 No Comments »

Photographs can increase the quality of your written content manifolds. Putting photographs doesn’t mean even lousy text will sound good, but it definitely adds value to the already written, good content.

But using images costs money. Many times I have used iStockPhoto to find images and illustrations for my various blogs and they have cost me anywhere between $1-$4. For once or twice a week it doesn’t sound like much, but if you need to use images almost everyday, or even multiple times in a day, it can turn out to be a nagging expense. Alternative?

The good old Flickr. You can find some great photographs on Flickr. All you have to do is link back to the user who owns the photographs. But you have to be careful while using the photographs from the photo-sharing website; not all photographs can be shared. Skellie tells you how to leverage the vast resource of Flickr without getting into copyright infringement troubles.

Technosailor too has a nice post on the topic of using images available on the Web legally.