Paul O'Flaherty

Rip Van Winkle ain’t got nothing on me

I went to bed last night at 9pm (after already taking a 3-4 hour nap during the day) with a splitting headache, the shivers and the sweats.

I honestly thought I wouldn’t sleep long, if at all, knowing what I’m like, yet one minute I was looking at the clock and it was 9:15pm and the next it was 11:15 am.

That’s 14 hours, plus almost 4 earlier in the the day for a total of 18 hours sleep. That’s just not like me!

I normally exist on 4 – 5 hours sleep a night tops.

Yet I must have needed it. Today I feel a bit better. The sweats are gone, and the headache is considerably less powerful.

I reckon I’ll be back to 100% for traveling tomorrow.

See, when the time comes, ole Rip Van Winkle ain’t got nothing on me!

Dear bloggers: Networkers network. Everybody else just shouts!

I had an awesome conversation on IM this morning with Sara from SuburbanOblivion about networking and bloggers and with her permission I’ve shared this gem of segment with you guys.

Sara: who says we have no power?

me: nobody did

The problem lies with the definition of “we”

Sara: ?

do tell

me: We is a collective term

99% of individual bloggers have no power

Sara: very true

me: So really.. that 99% have no right to the term we

It’s that 1% that they latch on to

LOL

Sorry.. just taking a provocative stance here

Sara: lol

nothing new

me: because it fits with what’s going though my brain at the minute

Sara: and I will say, one this this ‘collective’ is good at is networking and community

its not a matter of latching on, its a matter of building relationships

me: LOL.. 90% of bloggers do not build relationships

They latch on

Like junk floating in space

they latch onto the nearest big object that stays still long enough

Sara: maybe in your experience

me: The problem is that most bloggers just want to be heard..

They do not want to do the networking

they invest neither the time nor the work needed

The people who attend conferences and actually network are the minority

Sara: that doesn’t have to be done at conferences

me: No it doesn’t I never said that

Sara: I have a buttload of bloggers I email back ad forth with on a personal basis regularly

me: Yes you do.. and so do I..

get the point yet?

Networkers tend to network

Sara: and sites like Facebook and twitter make it even easier to get to know and keep in touch

me: They tend to be connected to other networkers

It doesn’t matter that the tools are there to be used..

Look at facebook, twitter, myspace, linked in..

friendfeed etc..

Look at your contacts

Sara: ok..

me: I’d wager that 75% or more of your contacts are the same on all of these networks

Networkers tend to network with other networks

er.. networkers

You have to look beyond that sphere

Sara: to a degree

me: You’re a networker and are connected to other networkers

Sara: never thought of it that way

I’m a blogger, and I like to get to know people

readers, potential readers

other friends too though

me: Yeah I know..

At the end of the day it really comes down to that old saying .. “birds of a feather flock together”

Sara: it IS networking, and I swear moms are a natural at that, but I’ve always thought the term ‘networker’ more as a business thing

if that makes any sense at all

likely not

me: Yeah I know

Sara: lol

At the end of the day, those of us that are part of the conversation are those of us who have the mind-set to network with and converse with others.

Everybody else, no matter what title they assign themselves is just another piece of flotsam washed up on the shore of the community they claim to be a part of.

Shirt in or Shirt out? What kind of a blogger are you?

Have you ever sat back and asked yourself what kind of blogger are you?

I don’t mean are you a tech blogger, business blogger or mommy blogger. I mean what kind of a blogger are you?

Are you a “shirt in” blogger, (I’m thinking about people in suit pants, shirt and tie on the hottest days) who dots every “i” and crosses every “t”.

Are you the kind of blogger who puts together impenetrable blog posts, full of outstanding logic that leaves little room for argument? When you’ve written your post do your readers feel the need to comment or are your posts so perfect that there’s nothing left to say once they’ve been read?

Do you only post about the topics your blog is supposed to be dedicated to?

Or are you a “shirt out” blogger?

Do you write posts that are off the cuff, that allow plenty of room for interpretation and rely on the intelligence of your readership to fill in the blanks? Do you trust that your readers will figure things out for themselves once you’ve provided the quick piece of insight which will spark conversation.

Do you allow your blog posts (like your shirt) to fall out beyond the realms of the pants and belt you’ve tucked them into?

So dear readers – shirts in or shirts out?

Meet-ups and events for 28th of April – 5th of May

I’m starting to keep the length of my videos down on BlogTV so that I can cross post them to my YouTube channel.

This is the first one that I recorded this morning which is essentially a run down of what’s going to be happening the week of 28th of April – 5th of May.

It’s essentially a video recap of my previous post.

leave next Monday for London for Internet World which and will be there, live streaming on Fuelmyblog TV, with Kevin on the 29th in Earls Court.

Speaking of streaming, we’ll be doing a lot of stream next week.

On the Monday evening we will doing the Blog2Print Comedy Captions show from somewhere in Hertfordshire.

Tuesday we’ll be streaming from Internet World.

Wednesday will be from Heathrow Airport and Chicago.

On Thursday we’ll be streaming from various random locations around Chicago as well as from the Fuelmyblog Bloggers meet-up on Thursday night.

Friday will be more randomness as well as the opening cruise for SOBCon08.

On Saturday will be more SOBCon and to wrap up the week we’ll probably broadcast from the various airports as we travel back to England and then onto France and Denmark.

All set for Internet World 2008 London

I got a surprise this morning when my confirmation and registration badge for Internet World 2008 arrived in the post.

I had completely forgotten that it was due to arrive. I had thought I was all ready to go.

I leave next Monday for London for Internet World which and will be there, live streaming on Fuelmyblog TV, with Kevin on the 29th in Earls Court.

Speaking of streaming, we’ll be doing a lot of stream next week.

On the Monday evening we will doing the Blog2Print Comedy Captions show from somewhere in Hertfordshire.

Tuesday we’ll be streaming from Internet World.

Wednesday will be from Heathrow Airport and Chicago.

On Thursday we’ll be streaming from various random locations around Chicago as well as from the Fuelmyblog Bloggers meet-up on Thursday night.

Friday will be more randomness as well as the opening cruise for SOBCon08.

On Saturday will be more SOBCon and to wrap up the week we’ll probably broadcast from the various airports as we travel back to England and then onto France and Denmark.

Easy way to synch who you follow on Twitter and Friendfeed

I’ve been on Friendfeed for a while and have to admit to now using it all that much. I think much of that has to do with the hassle of finding the accounts of the couple of all the people I’m following on Twitter.

Well that may change soon as courtesy of Eric over at InternetDuctTape there now exists a program called “Twitter 2 Friend Feed Importer” which will plough through al the people you follow on Twitter and add then to your friendfeed account using Googles Social Graph API.

It keeps track of who it has added over time. If you unsubscribe from someone using the web interface, they won’t be added again next time you run.

It uses Google’s Social Graph API to try and find connections between accounts on Twitter and Friend Feed (since Friend Feed doesn’t provide a good autodiscovery mechanism). You can play with the Social Graph API here. Unfortunately, this can be hit or miss. It works great on some people, but not so well with others.

It comes down to whether or not the person has been setting up XFN and FOAF links between their services. It shows a big failure in the social graph API. People who have claimed their accounts using Technorati, Claim ID or MyBlogLog are easily linked — others, not so much.

The program itself is still very basic (has no GUI) and as Eric admits, it’s a bit hit and miss but did successfully manage to locate a few of the people I’ve been following on Twitter and had failed (due to boredom and the monotony of searching for usernames) to locate.

Thanks Eric!

WP2.5 Upgrade complete

The upgrade is complete and everything appears to be working fine. Please let me know if you spot anything that’s broken.

Making the jump to 2.5 (finally)

I know I’ve been procrastinating about making the jump to WordPress 2.5 but today I’ve decided I better get my thumb out of my backside and get it done before I head to off to London and Chicago next Monday.

My database is backed up. I’m backing up all my files from my server. Plugin upgrades have been downloaded.

Looks like I’m ready to rock. Wish me luck and please report any weirdness you may encounter on the site after the upgrade has been completed.

My biggest flaw as a blogger

My biggest flaw as a blogger is that I don’t comment enough on other blogs.

I read hundreds of blog posts a day and while I may have a reaction to them, I am usually too busy to comment on them.

Instead I either share them on my link blog and /or Twitter with every intention of revisiting them to comment.

I rarely get around to it.

Not commenting on other blogs is hurting me as a blogger.

While I may be sharing and twittering the content of bloggers that I follow and find interesting, I’m not a part of the conversation.

By not commenting, I’m not exposing myself to (no pun intended) the readers of the bloggers I follow. They, and the bloggers I follow, have little or no motivation to come to my blog because they don’t really know I exist.

After all, if you don’t speak up in a crowded room you will never be heard.

I’m also damaging my blog from a SERP point of view as ever comment not posted on another blog is one less incoming link for O’Flaherty.

Now I’ve shared my biggest flaw as a blogger with you, what’s yours?

Liz Strauss talking about SOBCon08

I just had the pleasure of spending some time talking on Liz Strauss on Fuelmyblog Live.

Liz gave us some insight into what will makes this years SOBCon such a great conference for bloggers to attend and confirmed that she will be attending the Fuelmyblog meet-up in Chicago.

The video is well worth checking out if you want the story as to why SOBCon08 will be a must attend event.

Can you buy a blog community?

What is the value of the O’Flaherty community? If the prices was right could I sell it?

Those two question have been on my mind since Chris Brogan asked "is your community for sale?" in his reactionary post to Andrew Baron putting his Twitter account up for sale.

What value would a purchaser take with them if they purchased the O’Flaherty outright, including my live show locations and  social network accounts.

What would somebody purchasing my name outright (or yours) be getting?

Obviously they’d be purchasing access to my audience. They would be forking out cash for my direct access to my RSS subscribers, the folks who visit my blog, follow updates on Facebook, watch O’Flaherty Live, everyone who subscribes via email.

In short they’d be paying for access to you!

Yet I think that such an investment would ultimately be a wasted investment regardless of which blogger you managed to purchase.

Blogger’s tend to have a unique community which is not the same as they community for a larger social site.

On a larger site such as say a popular forum you could actually purchase the community  because you wouldn’t be removing or replacing any aspect of the experience of the site. It’s the users interaction with each other around a topic that makes the community the community.

With blogs, once you’ve purchased a blog and remove the original author (or authors) you’ve taken away the key thing that made that site valuable in the first place.

On blogs it’s not as much about the users interaction with each other (although this is till very important) but more about their interaction with the author.

Blog readers become loyal to a blog because they typically become engaged by content. They feel an affinity towards the authors style of writing and personality.

This is something which can only very rarely be replicated. If you have a successful blog with a high reader count, the chances are that replacing the original author could result in a max exodus of readers.

Change the author and you change the readership.

Like print authors who are successful regardless of what publisher they use, good bloggers will take their audience with them to whatever new domain they decide to blog at leaving the original domain with little value except for the page rank and incoming traffic which may eventually die off as people stop linking to the site and the value of existing links diminishes.

Ultimately you end up paying for a very short lived period where you have the brief attention span of the original authors audience with diminishing return over time.

But what about a Twitter account, as in Andrew Barons case?

I would here that all you would be purchasing is the ability to spam the community for a brief period of time.

If other Twitter users are anything like me then they quickly stop following accounts that become spammy and I’m sure that the clicking of the "un-follow" button will be vastly accelerated once followers realize they are no longer following who they thought they were.

At the end of the day can your really buy a blog community? I don’t think so.