This might come as a shock to my 7 RSS subscribers, but I’m not a very prolific blogger.

Courtesy of PsychoFish (lou) via Flickr

My lack of blogging is not due to a shortage of ideas or an insurmountable level of effort in putting fingers to keyboard.  It is due to a relatively high – yet achievable – standard I’ve set for myself when it comes to writing.

I don’t consider myself a perfectionist, but I do take pride in how I craft ideas into words.

Unfortunately, this usually means I won’t post at all for one or more of the following reasons:

The Incomplete Blog Post

In real life I like to take both sides of most arguments. I like to be familiar with all the different nuances of an issue and I like to think my ideas are well thought-out and complete.

To this end, I’m reluctant to post something that I consider to be half-baked – or worse – half-assed.

I don’t know why this is since there is a small body of evidence that suggests these are my best blog posts.

For instance, inspired by an in flight magazine, I jotted out the basic idea of my blog post about editorial calendars while flying cross-country.  I polished up the draft a bit and submitted it to YOUmoz the next day.

Dosh Dosh later stumbled on the post and expounded on it and came up with something degrees better than my original idea.  And I think that’s exactly how the Internet (and the blogosphere) should work.

Adding to this, there was a recent post by someone about how we shouldn’t be afraid of an incomplete blog post (I can’t find it now).

Faced with this evidence, anecdotal though it may be, I clearly shouldn’t be concerned about posting an incomplete blog post.

The Too Short Blog Post

I have some ideas that are too long for a 140 character tweet, yet they are too short for a regular blog post.

When faced with these ideas I try to find a way to verbalize them so that they can be condensed into a tweet or they can be expounded into something a little meatier.

I don’t know what the right length of a blog post should be for a personal blog like this.

Looking back on some of my posts I’m usually in the 1000+ word range.

Would a 200 word or so blog post be too short?  100 words?

Unlike Goldilocks, I don’t know what size blog post would be just right.

The Too Long Blog Post

This is the corollary to the above.

A lot of things I want to write about are too involved and lengthy to be put into one blog post.  My intention when I have these topics is to write out a series of posts and to publish them one at a time over the span of a few weeks or days.

What usually ends up happening however is that I write enough to get about half-way through my topic (usually one or two posts) and then I get distracted – or I simply lose interest in my original idea.

So, the blog posts end up shelved on some section of my hard-drive (or web server) – never to see the light of day.

A better approach might be to just push out what I have, and allow it to be open-ended.  This fits perfectly with the solution outlined two sections above.

If the ideas have merit – then others can pick it up and do something with it, or I’ll be inspired to finish it out myself.  If the ideas don’t have merit – then there isn’t much reason for me to finish it out anyway.

The No-Applicable Graphic Blog Post

As much as I like words – I like pictures too.  And blog posts with pictures are always better than those without.

Sugarrae made the argument that if you can’t spend a little time and/or money to find a picture for your blog post – you probably shouldn’t post at all.  And I tend to agree with that.

The only problem is – sometimes I can’t find the right picture.  Even if I’m willing to pay for it, I’m not always able to find something I like.  And the time involved in searching through pictures is another hurdle on the way to pushing out a blog post.

My only solution in this case might be to just post some random picture completely unrelated to the topic – or to post no picture at all.

The Off-Topic Blog Post

This is one I struggle with all the time.  THIS blog is meant to serve a few functions – one of which is reputation management.

If someone is looking to hire me as a builder, a Realtor, or as an employee – it would be ideal if this was one of the first things that showed up in the search engines.

If a long lost former classmate, or someone I grew up with was to Google me someday (can you hear me Tammy Tressler?), it would be great if they came here first to see what I’ve been up to.

To that end, I try to limit what I post on here.

You wouldn’t know it from this blog but I actually write and publish a lot.

I tend to write a lot about things like dating, parenting, my crushes on TV stars (I’m looking at you – Summer Glau) and my complete lack of even a basic understanding of women – but I do all those things on MySpace.

I figure if you’re looking for me on MySpace – that’s pretty much what you might be expecting – so that’s a good place for it.  The fact that very few adults actually use MySpace is an added benefit!

On here I’m aiming to stick to things that would be acceptable at a business lunch: Internet marketing, entrepreneurship, public policy, etc.

However, sometimes I come up with topics that don’t really fit into either of those categories.

The ideas are too high-minded for MySpace and a little off-topic for this blog.

This was my motivation behind starting my BeingBatman blog.  I really had no outlet to discuss all things Batman related. I knew I had no outlet because my kids told me “Dad, you have no outlet”.  But even that little blog suffers from my reluctance to post an imperfect blog entry.

Alas, there might not be an easy solution to the off-topic blog post issue.

Resolution

Since this has now gone on for 1094 words, so its about time that I get to my point.

I’m going to start to embrace the imperfect blog post.

The incomplete off-topic post that is either too short, or too long that I can’t find a good graphic for – that will all come here.

For better or for worse.

And if it turns out I don’t like it, or it doesn’t quite fit this blog – then I can always weed it out later.

Right?

This post has been in a draft status for a while; since I am getting ready to write my SMX East review, I figured it was time to push it out.

This was my very first Pod Camp/SearchCamp Unconference.

I found out about this event a little bit at the last minute (maybe a few days before), but since it only cost $20 to attend and it was just a smidge over a 2 hour drive from Chez Vin – I figured it might be worthwhile to check it out.

The Good Parts
+ Very affordable, close and convenient
+ It was very well run
+ Held on the weekend (why aren’t more conferences like this)
+ Very diversified sessions
+ Setting – I love college campuses, so having this session at Temple University only enhanced my enjoyment.

What Is It?
From the official literature: An unconference is a meeting where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants. Since the quality of Pod Camp Philly is dependent on you, the participant, we encourage your active contribution. So, regardless of your level of experience, get up, ask questions, share your knowledge and live the spirit of PodCamp.

Who Attends?
I got the impression that most of the people in attendance at this unconference were independent bloggers and/or podcasters who had been doing it for a period of a few years. There were also a few representatives of search or social media agencies, as well as some small e-commerce businesses. The interaction between all of these groups was an added benefit to the sessions as a whole.

As I understand it The PodCamp portion had been a success in the past (in Philly and around the globe) and this year The Internet Marketers of the Delaware Valley decided to partner up with the PodCamp organizers and offer their own sessions under the name of Search Camp.

And while each group maintained their own event websites and organized their own sessions – once you got to the actual event, the two camps were indistinguishable from each other – and this was a good thing (as I’ll explain).

There were a total of 80 sessions offered in classroom sessions and the topics were diverse. A sampling included the following: Audio Production 101, SEO for Social Media, Usability 101, Taking your Podshow on the Road, Legal Pitfalls of Blogging and Website Architecture.

The sessions were held in The Tuttleman Learning Center (essentially the library) of Temple University. The camps had access to 7 classrooms as well as the auditorium.

According to the rules of the camp, if there was an empty classroom during one of the session times and you wanted to hold a class – you were more than welcome to schedule a session. A big grid was available to write in your session to let others know what would be going on.

Other rules of the camp included the following:

1) Everyone is encouraged to record EVERYTHING at PodCamp Philly, but all content must be released under a Creative Commons license. Please tag all posted content with “PodCamp Philly” and “PodCamp Philly 2008.” For SearchCamp specific material, we encourage you to tag it as both “PodCamp Philly 2008″ and SearchCamp Philly.

2) All attendees must be allowed to participate. (subject to space limitations).

3) Please allow other to express their views and do not monopolize the session.

4) The Law of Two Feet. If you’re not learning what you want to learn, you’re welcome to leave the session and go to a different one, or none at all. Take charge of your PodCamp experience – it will only be as good as you make it.

5) The Law of Null Space. You’ll find that most learning can come in between sessions, at lunch, etc… Be ready to get engaged by asking questions, exchanging business cards or even recording your conversation.

6) Make the Most of it – It’s Your PodCamp,. Hey, if you don’t find a session that covers a particular topic, create one yourself! Meeting rooms are freely available so schedule your session on the board at the Registration Desk; it may be what a lot of other people are looking for too.

I had planned out a few of the sessions I wanted to attend before I even left my house. On the web, the sessions were marked with experience levels (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) and I picked a few Search Camp sessions I thought would be worthwhile.

Unfortunately, I left my carefully planned agenda at home and when I got to the camp I had to scramble to find some sessions I wanted to attend. And while I had planned my day around Search Camp related sessions, once I arrived the available agenda didn’t distinguish between what was for bloggers/podcasters and what was for Internet marketers like me.

The end result were two days unlike the ones I had planned – which ended up far better than I could have intended.

My impressions from the sessions I joined:

What the heck is Blended Search? (Giovanni Galluci)

Gio was building search engines while Sergei and Larry were still in college. He talked a lot about blended search results and how the search engines are starting to understand that when people type in different search terms they may be looking for different content.

For instance when I type in the name of a celebrity, I could be looking for a picture of her, some recent news or gossip, or her IMDB entry.

Or when someone types in the word “apple” it could be the name of a company, the last name of a singer, a fruit or they may want a recipe.

Traditional search engines provide all of these different results on one page. But Gio is working with a company that is doing something a little bit different with a product they call Viewzi.

Viewzi is a new way to view blended search results. Viewzi isn’t a new search engine. It is a way to view the results of traditional search engines in a new way. The best way to understand Viewzi is just to go use it. A vanity search is what I did, and I have to tell you while Viewzi’s does have a nice “eye candy” interface, and that can distract you – the results returned were surprisingly well organized and unique.

At the end of the day though, Viewzi at this point is just a shinier version of a search engine. I guess you could call it the iPhone of search engines – only without all of the Apple mystique behind it.

Pay Per Click 101 (Greg Meyers):

My experience with PPC is limited, so nearly everything in this session was useful. Greg talked a lot about testing out different messages, upping your quality score, and the right way to become Google Adwords Certified (take the test at the end of the mandatory ad run and study hard). Overall a good session for a beginner like me, it probably would have been wasted on someone with a little more experience – which is exactly what a 101 session should be.

Starting out in Podcasting (The Handy Guys – Brian Peppel & Paul Shane)

This was a good session and a very good intro to podcasting, lots of great resources were presented and it was nice to hear the background story of how these two lifelong friends got into doing a weekly podcast.

The amazing thing to me was the amount of time, energy and effort that goes into producing even a very simple but high-quality once a week podcast. How anyone does this as a hobby is beyond me. I don’t think you can do it without having a passion for it.

B2B Site Clinic (Greg Meyers and Digital Alex Cohen)

This was the first site clinic I had ever attended. It was interesting, but I don’t know if there was a lot of take away for me. The sites presented were B2B, and when changes and recommendations were made the site owners said there might be some reluctance to make the changes back at the office. So I was left wondering what the whole point was.

Building Communities (Kim Krause Berg)

Kim Krause Berg was probably the most recognized name of any session and this presentation was standing room only. She walked the group through a number of community guideline best practices gleaned from her years of running the Cre8asite forums.

If you run a forum, it was probably extremely helpful. If you’re looking to build communities outside of forums it was probably a little less so.

SEO vs PPC vs Social Media (Greg Meyers, Wil Reynolds & Li Evans)

Due to traffic issues at the start of the second day I arrived about half-way through this session, but this looked to be a great session. The interaction between these three forces, and which one is more important, always gets a little bit of good debate going – this session was no different.

In the end the presenters showed how the three can and do supplement each other – and they did it in a very clear way. I think a lot of value could be delivered at the agency level if more account types could explain and sell these three initiatives to clients as well as this group did.

Is Email Marketing Dead? (Beth Harte)

There were some equally great sessions competing with Beth during this time slot, so the group for this session was probably no more than 8 people. Beth gave a lot of good pointers on steering clear of CAN-SPAM violations as well as initiating and managing a sustained e-mail program.

I think of all the sessions I attended this was the only one where I walked away with the most quantitative information (as measured in actionable content – rather than just some new concepts or ideas).

How Do Search Engines Work (Giovanni Galluci)

I’ll admit I was hoping this would be a little more (or even a lot more) advanced than what it was.

I wanted to know about things like whether the search engines have two or more spiders (one for link discovery, one for indexing, etc.), what criteria a spider uses to determine how deep into a site it needs to go, does it only pay attention to the first anchor text, etc.

What it ended up being was a very very basic introduction to search engines and SEO.

This wasn’t Gio’s fault. It was just the speed of the audience in attendance.

At one point the class became nearly derailed as Gio (and then I as an attendee) tried to explain to the mostly blogger audience the difference between the title of the web page as presented by the <title></title> tags and the title of the web page as presented by the <h1></h1> tags at the top of a post. For a lot of the people in the audience they had never even considered the two.

So yeah, it was that kind of session.

Considering Gio’s experience and knowledge – it could have been a lot more interesting.

Twitter & Plurk Microblogging to the Extreme (Geoff Livingston)

I’ll admit I had never heard of Geoff before. Considering he’s very involved in social media, lives right here in the DC area and runs his own agency with some big name clients – this is a bit surprising. But this says more about my knowledge of the local search and social industry than it does about Geoff.

I actually attended this session because Beth Harte had said it would be interesting.

And it was. Again, the audience drove large parts of the discussion (following the spirit of Podcamp).

At one point a lady asked “why is it important to use Twitter for business? I don’t really need to know what you had for dinner for me to decide if I want to do business with you, I care about things like price and service, etc”.

Geoff has an animated and energetic presence and when he was confronted with this he more or less explained by way of anecdote how we prefer to do business with people we like, we tend to like people we know, and the more we know a person the more we trust them. So if a potential client can get to know you as a person through your tweets – all the better.

The lady was unconvinced, and I believe half the audience was with her.

The group seemed to be divided into those who liked and “got” Twitter, those who didn’t get the whole Twitter thing, and Beth Harte who wanted everyone to use Plurk.

eConversion 101 (Alex Cohen)

I attended this session because I enjoyed Alex’s insights during the B2B Site Clinic. He certainly knows his way around driving the conversion process, and I was hoping this would be a good session for me. But it just wasn’t the right fit.

A lot of Alex’s examples were e-commerce driven and most of what I do with websites is lead generation for my own services.

I needed some better ideas on getting people to sign-up for an e-mail, or to get a report, or a follow-up phone call, etc. Some of Alex’s advice (streamline forms, ask for as little info as possible, work on your message, and get everything above the fold) was helpful.

But then he went into things like shipping address/options, credit card processing, registering on e-commerce sites, etc.

I think I left this session about 15 minutes early to catch some of the Battle Decks going on in the auditorium – but that ended up being a waste of time anyway.

The videos I had seen of Battle Decks were probably the cream of the crop. Most of us just get up there and wing it. And in many ways, that isn’t any different than a regular presentation in the corporate world.

Would I Go Again?

Absolutely. Not only to PodCamp Philly, but to any barcamp unconferences (Wordcamp is another popular one) around the country.

When I go next year I am going to get a hotel. For a few reasons I chose to drive up and back both days. Economically this probably ended up being a wash, and I got spend the night in my own bed. But the drive does take some out of you and I missed a few of the social events because I was busy driving home.

Based on some of the questions I heard from a few of the bloggers in attendance, I might even organize a few of my own sessions.

There are two grocery stores I frequent in my hometown of Crofton Maryland – Safeway and Giant Foods. One of these stores embraces me with open arms while the other seems to work tirelessly to not have me as a customer.

In relation to me – the two stores are remarkably equal in many ways. They are both approximately the same distance from my house, they are priced comparably and 99% of their offerings are identical.

Having said this – I go to the Giant Foods as infrequently as possible and almost always regret making the decision.

Mostly, I go there for the salad bar (which is the only way they are better than Safeway) or when I happen to be near by and I only need something simple (loaf of bread, gallon of milk, diet cokes etc.).

The reason for this is their lack of usability.

This all started a few years back when they expanded and remodeled their store. Like many of their patrons, I had to re-educate myself on how to navigate the store to get the items I need (the peanuts are where now? what about the chocolate milk?).

The problem is, that just when I feel like I’ve gotten everything figured out – they move stuff around again. And it is never anything that feels at all intuitive.

When you couple this with the fact that most food manufacturers seem to be going on some kind of repackaging kick – the result is I can’t find anything.

Today was a perfect example. I went with my daughter to get some salad for lunch and I remembered being low or out of croûtons and salad dressing. So while she was dilly-dallying with her salad I went to the same aisle I’ve gone to for at least a year to get my regular croûtons and as I walked down the aisle I experienced an epic fail.

The croûtons I’ve always purchased there – were no where to be found. They weren’t just out of them – they weren’t there. Something else was in its place.

Granted, there were some croutons down at the far end of the aisle, a bit removed from where I would have looked for them – but they weren’t any of the brands or styles or packages I was looking for.

Plus, I was already a little pissed I couldn’t find my preferred salad dressing and that my second choice of dressing was in a different kind of bottle making it harder for me to find on the shelf.

The end result was – I left the store minus the croûtons.

All in all the whole experience made me feel like I was a stranger in a store that I go to a few times a month.

The Crofton Safeway on the other hand seems to have what I need exactly (or pretty damn close to) where I might be looking for it. They not only have aisles organized by food types (canned food, pasta, etc.) but the aisles themselves are grouped according to how you might use the items (Snack Time, Baking Time, Breakfast Time, etc.).

In addition, they always seem to be thinking of what else I might want when I am looking for something else. For instance, even though they have chocolate milk powder in a food aisle where you would expect to find chocolate milk – they have also have chocolate milk powder conveniently next to the milk itself. The same is true for a dozens of these complimentary goods.

I know there is a whole theory behind product placement in grocery stores, and that the store itself probably benefits from me having to wander down aisle after aisle looking for something. After all – who knows what else I might pick up along the way because the package was all bright and shiny. But for me – it just isn’t working.

When it comes to grocery shopping I am what you might call a casual user. I don’t have the time, energy or interest in having to learn where everything is in a grocery store. 95% of the food items I purchase are always the same, so I expect them to be in the same place. I expect the store to make it easier on me – not more difficult.

Smart video game designers always design games that are very easy for the casual gamer to pick up every once in a while to play, but they also know they need to design it so that it takes many hours for the more serious gamer to master (World of Warcraft as an example).

My question is – why can’t Giant Foods?

Here now is my quick and short list of things you should do to benefit your casual user:

1) Don’t make them feel like a stranger.

Most of us should know this, but it always amazes me how often people do something so radical on their website that it takes a few seconds to comprehend what is going on. Whether it is a new navigation scheme or simply a new way of naming things – these sites never make it easy to just drop in.

2) Try to anticipate what else they might need.

I love sites that give you links to related posts (if I ever put a lot of content on this site, I’ll need to do this). But it doesn’t just have to be additional posts – other kinds of content work also (photos, music, external links, etc.). Using tags to organize your web site is a great way to follow the Safeway example of providing navigation by food item and the time of day you might use it.

3) Put what they might be looking for (and what you want them to find) in more than one place.

I also love sites that put a few different links back to the home page (for instance on my site you can click the big “Vinny Goldsmith” at the top, but you can also click the link that says “Home”). I also like sites that give their main navigation links at the bottom of the page – even if it is only an exact duplicate of what is at the top. Plus, if your content is presented across different pages (why would you do this?!?) – at least provide a way to click to the next and previous pages from the top and the bottom of the content.

BTW – I’m amazed whenever I get to a page from some external source (a link, a search result) and there isn’t any obvious link back to the main page of the website. This is just stupid design.

4) Trust your instincts and use common sense.

A few years back Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) decided to change the way they called their various parking options. It used to be that long term parking had color names (Long Term Blue, Long Term Green, etc), and that shorter parking options had letters (Short Term A, Short Term B, etc.) and all was right with the world.

Then for some inexplicable reason, they changed everything when they built some new structures. Now, everything is called a letter. So BWI has parking options that are Long Term A as well as Short Term A – the same is true of Long Term B and Short Term B, etc. etc..

Needless to say, for the uninitiated it can all be fairly confusing.

While away in Cabo San Lucas or Las Vegas, you need to remember which lot letter you parked in – as well as whether that lot was long term or short term (not to be confused with daily and/or hourly). And since all of the shuttles to these parking lots pick-up from the same location, there is always one or two hapless travelers who mistakenly get on the wrong bus.

While a bunch of us on a shuttle bus were lamenting this change and pondering what kind of person would come up with a scheme we were given the answer by another rider who claimed to be in the know: it was a consultant who came up with the scheme. He (or she) created it as a way of making the airport’s parking easier to understand.

My word of advice – if you’re going to engage the services of a usability consultant (and if you manage something complex you certainly should) – make sure all of their recommendations make sense to you and to someone who is a complete stranger to your website.

Further reading on Grocery Store Usability and Usability in general:

Don’t Make Me Think

First off, if you manage any kind of website and you haven’t read Steve Krug’s book Don’t Make Me Think, then you need to turn off your computer and go read this book right now. Seriously. It is the best book written on the subject of design and usability and you can read it in a weekend (usually a sign of a well-written book). If it was me, I’d probably make it required reading in high schools. It is much more informative and useful than something like “To Kill a Mockingbird”.

Related Blog Entries

Way back in November of 2004 Drew McLellan of All in the <Head> did a rant on this very subject: Supermarket Usability.

Over at ClickZ Jack Aaronson talked about Brand vs. Usability using grocery stores as an example as he looked for the middle ground.

And over at LoveYourUsers there is a post called The Thrill of Grocery Shopping that discusses their experience walking around a new grocery store and all the things they did right (including the fact that they gave out maps!).

For a good blog on usability I recommend Dr. Pete’s User Effect.

I hope all this helps – and happy grocery shopping.

Giant Foods of Crofton – you suck!

It’s that time of year when we all throw open the windows, hang out the carpets, spruce up the yard and get to cleaning out the cobwebs.

If you’re like me you live and browse on the fly, making changes here and there, adding things and subtracting things as you see fit. Spring gives us a good excuse to take a break and clean up some of the clutter we’ve accumulated both online and off.

For those of us who live and work on the Internet – here is my Spring Cleaning Checklist:

__ Check all of your web sites for broken links (W3C Broken Link Checker)

__ Check all of your web sites for valid mark-up (W3C Markup Validator and W3C CSS Markup Validator)

__ Check your web sites for load time (Web Page Analyzer Load Time Check)

__ Check your website for Usability (Daily Bits Essential Web Usability Checklist and Dr. Pete’s Measuring Usability)

__ Update, Add and Remove any Plug-ins from Firefox or your browser of choice

__ Update your robots.txt exclusion file (Sebastian’s Pamphlets)

__ Using your analytics software review your visitors browsing capabilities and make any adjustments necessary

__ Delete any extraneous or out-of-date RSS feeds from your feed reader

__ Update any public profiles (this includes claiming or unclaiming blogs on sites like Technorati, MyBlogLog, etc.)

__ Update your Blogging Software and any Plug-Ins and Themes

__ Clean out old e-mails and e-mail folders (I have folders for things like “upcoming travel and events”, “act on this” and “read later” – they always have old stuff in them).

__ Clean out and organize your bookmarks/favorites from your Internet Browser

__ Clean out any favorites you no longer want from your RSS Reader and any social bookmarking sites

__ Update your forum signatures

__ Get rid of and 301 any old web sites or blogs

__ Update the settings in your Analytics software, Webmaster Central, and Google Adsense settings

__ Clean out the Temp file directory, Cookies and Recycle Bin on your computer

Did I miss anything?

A short-little-nothing-throw-away post on an overcast and rainy Saturday.

I guess you could say this is actually about the Internet in general, but I’m going to talk about blogging specifically.

I remember way back when I first heard about hyper-links I thought it was the greatest thing ever.

It was probably the mid-80′s, and the story was on some news special about an information system that would provide additional information (via clickable text) on whatever you were reading. I think the actual information system they were discussing was an encyclopedia or something – it certainly wasn’t related to anything called the Internet.

This was great news for me. I spent large portions of my life with my nose deep in a book and if I wanted to learn something more about what I was reading, or I had additional questions – I had to wait until my next trip to my library and hope the information would be there.

Then, in the mid-90s the Internet exploded. By the year 2000 any information you could possibly be looking for could be found somewhere online.

But blogging takes it all to the next level. With blogging, you often find information you want – but not something you were necessarily looking for.

Let’s take today for example. I have about 6 hours of uninterrupted time before I have to start getting ready for a play I am going to tonight. So I thought I would catch up on making some entries into the handful of blogs I’m trying to keep current.

To get some ideas and inspiration I went to the blog of one of my fellow SEOMoz members: Montessori for Everyone. Lori is a self-described “stay-at-home, homeschooling mom” and she has done a tremendous job with her combination blog and e-commerce web site. I think it is an exceptional model for a small home based business that utilizes the Internet to have a big impact.

I visit her blog from time to time – whenever I have the time. And today when I clicked on her “About” page I noticed she had a personal blog as well.

And that is when things took off.

From her personal blog I found this entry on blogging and boundaries.

[side note: another SEOMoz friend posted a similar entry over at her blog on SEOSmarty (beyond niche blogging).]

Lori’s entry talked about Penelope Trunk’s blog so I clicked on that (and since I liked three of four of the entries I read – I added her to my already over-flowing rss reader).

Penelope had an entry where she talked about getting back on track – and on there she had a link to Guy Kawasaki’s new web site called Alltop which has already become one of my favorite web sites – even though I didn’t even know about it an hour ago.

If it wasn’t for Lori blogging about Penelope blogging about Guy’s Alltop – and all of them sharing the link love – I wouldn’t have found out about Alltop today – and that is what makes Blogging the best way to get and share information.

And these kinds of connections happen tens-of-millions of times a day all across the Internet between bloggers and their readers.

Now, sure I would have eventually found out about Alltop – but blogging makes such discoveries happen even faster.

Alright, now I have to get back to blogging for real.

—–

P.S. – it just occurred to me that this whole post is an example of inadvertent keyword stuffing. Oh well.