Five blog memes

Mike Sansone commented on his good friend Mike Wagner's Five Things meme. It was thought-provoking enough for me to add my own opinions.

• Transparency - Mike maintains there should be a face and a name. Yes it adds credibility and the human side to it. Although, I can understand how some feel more comfortable using their blogs as anonymous channels which gives them more freedom to be expressive and outspoken. For the longest time, this blog was simply TheIdeaDude, being a platform for my ideas was sufficient. However, with the involvement in TheGoodBlogs it has been become necessary to add a persona. It depends whether the blog is a creative outlet, a conversation and network builder and/or a brand builder.
  
• Generosity - There are no blogrolls on my site. There are archaic and maintenance-prone. Additionally, it has become a vehicle for link building for many sites. When we first started, we scraped a lot of blogrolls and found that many had up to 40% of dead links. Dead in that the blog the link referred to no longer existed or had been inactive for more than 6 months. That tends to backfire on the credibility of the blog and its author. I created and use TheGoodBlogs exclusively because it promotes the content as well as the blogger, if you don't blog for more than 30 days, you don't get circulated in the widget.
  
• Consistency - Agreed 100%. To remain in people's mindshare, you have to have an entry every day if possible, at worst once a week. If people come knocking and you're not home consistency, they stop visiting. Freshness is also an indication of your commitment to the blog community and your readers. Technorati had a stat that said average time between blog entries is between 3-5 days, so don't feel bad if you don't blog everyday. It shouldn't be forced, but it should be disciplined. Unless you're Elvis, people need to know you haven't left the building.
  
• Remark-ability - It's tough to write blogs that make people comment unless you're prepared to be controversial. Many comments are often made by people you know or in the case of A-listers, to be seen. So to have more comments, make sure you comment on other blogs.
  
• Ads or not - let's face it, unless you're an A-lister, making money on your blog should not be a priority. (I question how many A-listers actually make decent money anyway - enough to be self-sufficient). It's pocket change for the rest of us. So don't put large Google ads in people's faces at the top of the blog. It says to me, that making a dime is more important than getting your idea and thoughts across to your readers.