Guy Kawasaki points at an interview Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google with the iinnovate Podcast guys.
The line which seems to be doing the rounds on the blogsphere is:
“You don’t learn very much when you yourself are talking.”
This is a rather old saying but it’s been popularised by one of the gurus of the modern world (where everything can be shrinkwrapped and given a Web 2.0 sheen).
This got me thinking about blogging. Unless you get comments, blogging is a one way conversation. Now, Scoble would tell you it’s all about starting conversations – so how do you turn it into a conversation?
The plan seems to be to read. I read 128 feeds and I currently contribute to four blogs. So I read/listen to four times as many feeds as I create. Is that a good ratio? I also read reddit/digg, Slashdot, MacNN, MacRumors and the links they lead to.
How many feeds do you read? Do you comment on blogs? Ever actually digged something? Do you see value in Twitter? Do you think Radar is compelling? These tools are all about getting the end user into the habit of sharing information.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
About 130 blogs (although yours is the only bloody one that doesn’t offer the full content of the text in the feed!)
Twitter? Nah, you know, I’d rather not tell people when I’m not doing something I’m supposed to be doing …
Radar never heard of it, probably won’t use it.
- pj
Not sure why that is, pj, it’s configuramafacketed the same as my other blogs and they seem to be feeding fine.
I’ve no problems with your feed in Google Reader or Akgregator….
I’d heard of Twitter before, but not Radar.
Blogging still hasn’t become a “reflexive” thing for me: I only occasionally post content and don’t leave many comments, but I _do_ religiously keep up to date on the few feeds I do subscribe to. I wish the web was less of a one-way transfer of information for me
Problem solved – with all the chopping and changing I must be subscribed to an alternative to the full rss feed (hey, who knew? – I was subscribed to http://blog.infurious.com/wp-rss.php whereas now I’m subscribed to http://blog.infurious.com/feed/)
That’s better
Don’t keep track of them as more dabble around and chop/change them quite a bit.
Just thought I’d post 2 show your big audience!
Lal
Your going to regret point me here!
My primary school teacher use to say “You can’t hear anything if your talking”. And thats going back to the 70s/80s so it’s not a particularly new adage tbh.
I don’t necessarily believe that blogging is about starting conversations. I know people read my blog, but they don’t comment, even when I poke them quite hard. And there are other reasons for blogging…
I’m a bit of big lurker. I’ll comment on things if I have something to add.