Chippy's Hiblue Lab

I’m sitting here and experiencing real peace and quiet right now. Being away from the desk makes you think differently and in this case I was cycling up a foothill of the Alps here in Bavaria thinking about how many websites are struggling to compete against the big boys. Media companies like AOL are all over the web now covering every important topic and working-in coverage of niche keywords while they do it. The SEO power of these media companies is quite phenomenal. They’re also getting good at theatre.

The Daily Mail is a classic example of news theatre and has built a huge following based on it. Techcrunch is one example of a website that works its theater well too. Teasing headlines, controversial content and often a slightly off-balance focus.

Security and privacy stories are the worst with many issues never being tested and analysed for true risk.

I’m seeing it all over now and as the big guys fight amongst each other for 10 hard-hitting stories per day it’s only going to get worse.

As what you might call a second-tier blogger who runs 4 websites privately, I don’t get involved in the fight but it does affect my traffic. A lot of private websites that used to ‘link-love’ are now part of these big media networks and with their celebrity bloggers are able to drive traffic via social networks with more efficiency. The theater happens there too. Twitter is full of it although when I take a look into the German language on social networks it doesn’t happen so much. It tells me that it’s largely coming from the USA which makes sense to me. Silicon Valley and the USA in general has always been good at theater!

Are you experiencing ‘theater’ more on websites now? Is sensationalism creating into the equation? Are you a private blogger trying to make a living in this tough environment? Maybe all blogs need to become part of a network eventually?

Posted, possibly while reclining, with the Galaxy Tab 7

I can’t deny that my sites (UMPCPortal, Carrypad) growth has been stunted by my reduced attention span in the last 18 months. Two important family considerations (both good!) have hit my working day very hard and I’m struggling to fight my way back into care-taking the sites as I should be.  I don’t want to give details but a baby and a hard-working, successful wife gives you a clue.

In addition to the time issues, there’s also the tablet crave.

I am, quite frankly, struggling to keep up with the short-form coverage [that's a polite way to put some of the content i've seen recently] coming from established tech sites.

I’ve lost all of my blogging momentum as a result of these two issues. One took the time away, the other took some of the desire away.

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Like the books says, cross the chasm to a small island and build out from there. Or something like that anyway. [Ref: Crossing the Chasm]

I don’t know if many people out there are considering starting a new blog these days but there’s one thing for sure, the only way to do it organically is to focus on a tiny niche and build out from there. Some of you might have noticed my experiments with product blogs recently. I did the MyOmniaPro blog and now I’m doing the XperiaX10 blog. I definitely learnt a lot from the two experiences and see an advantage now in running multiple smaller blogs rather than one big one. The reasons?

• Focused community. All the readers are there for one reason. It build quickly.
• Easier SEO. Naming the blog myomniapro.com brought it to the top of a Google search for Omnia Pro within about three months. I’m currently testing with a sub-domain xperiaX10.carrypad.com in the hope that I get good keyword SEO from the domain name but also add to the value of Carrypad.com which I also own. If that works, I might do further sub-blogs.
• Choose something you love, buy it, blog it. It’s so much fun to learn, to share and to get feedback on something you own.
• Focused advertising. Through Amazon you can place highly targeted ads meaning better chance of clickthrough and conversion. Google is also able to determine the subject of your blog very easily.
• Product-focused forums work well. Much better than forums that focus on a sector.
• When the product dies, move on. If you don’t like the product, be honest, sell it and put the blog on ice. Move on to a new topic.
• You’re not tied to a sector.
• It’s easier to become an expert on a device than on a sector.

One disadvantage is management and time-splicing between multiple blogs.

WordPress MU helps to set sub-blogs up super quickly though so that shouldn’t be a problem. As far as time-splicing goes, focus on what you love but pay attention to stats. If you’re in it for the money, you need to attend to the things that are popular.

Hope those thoughts help you with your blogging plans. I’m off now to post my first impressions of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 – A device I’m really enjoying.

Oh, and by the way, I’m still running two big blogs because they’ve already got traction. I have no plans to spit them up as that would be too much of a risk.