Way back (almost a year ago) Seth Godin posted a much noticed item "What makes an idea viral?" He used seven simple ideas (four rules of "sending" and three about "getting" ideas) to explain such complexities as why Nietzsche's ideas spread slowly while "Numa Numa" (don't ask!) spread like wildfire.
These are the seven rules for viral ideas:
Which all makes a sort of sense, however, Jason Kottke has revisited the list and thought it through with respect to blogging: "How I Blog". A good post, as Jason implies, takes account of these rules.No one "sends" an idea unless:
- they understand it
- they want it to spread
- they believe that spreading it will enhance their power (reputation, income, friendships) or their peace of mind
- the effort necessary to send the idea is less than the benefits
No one "gets" an idea unless:
- the first impression demands further investigation
- they already understand the foundation ideas necessary to get the new idea
- they trust or respect the sender enough to invest the time
- It is comprehensible,
- important to the blogger,
- they expect some reward (even if only not themselves forgetting)
- and the reward is greater than the effort of postng.
- draws the reader in (first impressions count),
- but only readers with sufficient previous shared knowledge,
- and only if they actually arrive at the blog to read the post. (Which is why I must post more now that the frantic rush is almost over, else you will not keep me on your "list" ;-)
I suspect I'm especially guilty of not thinking enough about "Get A":
Though hopefully, today, "What and how to blog" drew you in. And wisdom stolen from others rewarded you! ¶ 7:51 AMa. the first impression demands further investigation - I spend a lot of time on getting the description of some linked text, photo, or video just right, so that the reader has a good idea of what they're getting into. Choosing a 1-2 sentence pull-quote that accurately represents the idea of an article is key in getting people's attention in a productive way. "This is an awesome link" is only going to cut it so many times; you need to tell people what the link is and give people an honest reason to click.
[to Del.icio.us]
It all makes sense, although the fundamental question still is "why do I blog", it seems to me. There are many cases when I post something that has relevance to me (so I try to put it down as clearly as possible) and maybe to others. But it is not the others that I decide to primarily focus on. This is not the same as having a fully personal logbook (why post on the internet then, one could say), it is that in a blog post you may simply want to jot down ideas that
1) might be useful to you as draft notes (I've used some of my posts that way a few times - expanding what I wrote in the blog in a "more personal" - conversations, classes - context later)
2) might be useful to "the reader", whoever he/she may be, as an information source. This, as Jason says, presumes that the reader is interested enough to follow the argument. Now, there's some randomness in "getting the reader" (and the reader's attention) here, but see - take my little blog, who has a very small "regular" audience: most of its readers come from Google searches - I assume that if one gets to a post of mine titled "binitarian theology" while looking for binitatian theology issues he might, at least in theory, be interested. He may then even forgive some of the inaccuracies, or the sloppiness, or the grammatical errors, of the post to take home something of interest to him/her.
Things may certainly change if you have a regular readers base (and consciously know you have it - which could tie you in to specific styles and/or expectations - something I am trying to avoid), and/or if you craft your blog e.g. to be part of a class, i.e. for explicit didactical purposes.
By 
Davide Salomoni, at
August 10, 2006 5:36 PM
Thanks Tim, definitely needed some tips about 'blogging.' It is definitely a whole new world around here.
By sea, at
August 10, 2006 10:14 PM
