“When you write like everyone else and sound like everyone else and act like everyone else, you’re saying, “Our products are like everyone else’s, too.”–Jason Fried from a recent Inc magazine article
When I started blogging I feared being myself and looked to other bloggers I respected and copied their tone. I’m sure everyone starts similarly but over time the more personal you sound on your blog the more engaging and interesting it becomes.
Finding your tone is not an independent endeavor. I believe the feedback (or lack of) that you get from those reading your blog solidify your tone.
My two favorite blogs right now are Chris Brogan’s and Signal vs. Noise by the 37 Signals team. It’s not just the content that I enjoy but the tone of their writing–there are blogs that provide better content around the same topics but lack the personality of these blogs. Your readers are gravitating towards your blog not just for the content but also for the tone.
Two more great quotes from the article:
“They don’t hide behind jargon. They aren’t insecure. They aren’t afraid to tell you who they are.”
“Remember: It’s not about telling a story. It’s about telling a true story well.”
What blogs do you read that have good tone? What has your process of finding your tone looked like as you have been blogging?
Last week I got an email from Brian asking me to write a post here about IE and why it’s no good. He’s right it’s no good. It’s so “no good” that I’m having a hard time not writing vulgar words about it. I have my self-control turned up to 11, so I think we’ll be okay.
For full disclosure, I should inform you that all I did to get info for this post is search for “why internet explorer sucks” on Google. I am going to pull extensively from a post at lockergnome.com because his post follows the same flow that mine was going to and that way I don’t have to write as much. I’d suggest you go and read that post, too.
Let’s start then.
Security
This is going to be the reason that convinces more of you than anything else. I will not be offended if you leave this post immediately after this section and download another browser right away.
Put simply: IE is not secure, and this is even more true as you look at older versions.
Pop-ups, viruses & the like will always have an easier time getting to your system in IE because IE is integrated into your system. The fact that Firefox, Chrome and the like aren’t seamless is a good thing. You always want to have something in between you and anything that might have a virus – the argument is exactly like a safe-sex talk, except less dire.
Lockergnome:
…most other browsers don’t make it so easy to install malicious software on your system without you knowing about it. IE makes it relatively trivial through two features called ActiveX and Active Scripting. These technologies were designed specifically for the purpose of giving Web sites more control over a user’s computer.
Web Design Standards
Most people don’t know this, but there are standards for web design and coding on the internet developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community that develops standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web.
These standards deal with how the different coding languages (HTML, CSS, XHTML, etc.) & image formats should displayed on a browser. This is why everything looks virtually the same in every browser. The reason that I say “virtually” is because Microsoft has, in the development of IE, essentially decided that they are too big and important to be bound by the rules that everyone else on the internet seeks to follow.
Lockergnome:
Ask yourself why a company would choose not to support standards that benefit everyone? The way I see it, it’s for precisely one of two reasons – either they are unable to, or they don’t want to. Given the fact that they are a multi-billion dollar company (one of the richest on the planet), I can’t help but lean toward the second option. Without going into too much detail… they have their own plans, and those plans involve implementing their own standard and forcing it upon the world. Call me a geek/hippie, but the idea of a multi-billion dollar corporation snubbing its nose at agreed-upon standards is nothing short of infuriating.
Others
There are other reasons, but they all boil down to customization. I like to browse the internet in a seamless fashion, and other browsers let me do that. I’d suggest reading a series of posts I wrote on CruTech.org a few years ago. They specifically talk about Firefox, but the argument and the options apply to Chrome and other browsers as well.
Often times people jump into blogging with passion but fail to translate and focus that passion into content that other people want to read. I always click on other posts that offer tips on how to refine the focus of a blog.
An easy way to do this is to use Google Keywords to discover the phrases other people search for. This is helpful because:
1. It causes you to think about phrases that others would use to describe your blog–a great exercise in refining your focus!
2. It provides insight into whether those phrases are actually being searched for in Google. The reason no one may be reading your blog is because your content is too vague.
Here’s a short screencast I made on how to start using the tool. I hope you find it helpful!
Join us for a 3 day conference via blogs! The hope is to engage in online dialog that will lead to changed lives–our own and lost students! This blogference will be like a conference, yet in the virtual world. There will be ‘Hosts,’ who will post on their blog something to stimulate discussion at the [...]
Brian has covered this before, but one of the things that I’ve found is most effective in bringing visitors to your site is posting regularly.
On my personal homepage I’ve been trying to post something with substance twice a week. What has been even more effective is splitting longer posts up. There are a couple [...]
1. Post REGULARLY (not a numerical goal): Something as specific as “I’m going to post every Tuesday and Friday.”
2. Respond to EVERY comment: A blog is set up for discussion and engagement; if you do not respond to comments you will dampen the spirits of those who comment and decrease the chances that they will [...]
1. Consolidate Your Categories to 3-5 larger ones: None of your readers are going to take the time to go through fifty different category tags. Eliminating tags will also help focus your writing and make your posts sharper.
2. Optimize Your Blog Title for Search Engines: Is your blog title abstract? Or is it only your [...]
