How to Change Online Publishing in 2009
The blog, the log, the weblog, wordpresses, journals both live and dead, yes they’ve all taken us pretty far. When I first blogged it was all static files. Yup just plain ol’ HTML files I manually built and organized, relics that live only in The Archive now. Today however, I can’t help but feel despite all the options and technology available, online publishing has gone stagnant, boring even.
These feelings were drivin home even more so after reading Duncan Riley’s recent post, The Uber Blog. Go read that and come back…
This is where blogs are headed, or are already on their way to. For me sites like Huffington Post really come to mind. I’m not even a huge fan but the unique layouts, inclusion of UGC and aggregated content make it both dizzying and genius at times. A lot of people are trying to give their blogs a face lift, to stand out more as platform, less of a journal. TechCrunch and the Gawker sites also come to mind.
Since I’m building my own little blog network this year, I thought I’d share some of the ways I’m going to, well do it better.
- Exposing Article Page Views
I’m going to show page views and even use them as a metric for the quality of that content. The views tell me things like readership numbers, weight in search engines, and of course “share-a-bility” across social media. I’ve started to expose page views on a few of my sites and found its the best way to track “the hits”. Since traffic is really all that matters to online publishers why not show off what you got. - Exposing Authors
Why do we hide so many of the great online writers? In most cases they are reduced to a byline, sometimes a clickable link to their archive. Wordpress powered blogs are notoriously bad at this. Authors should be highlighted, each with their own profile that includes a bio and how to find them around the web. Exposing links to their personal blogs, Twitter, etc helps them build social currency. Hint: That’s good for you as a publisher. We should expose, promote, and acknowledge our authors so much that they leave you in 1-2 years for a better job. - In line Aggregation
At some point in the last few years data has become very portable, publishers just haven’t taken advantage of it. Why not bring in aggregated content even if it is external, to keep a page fresh? You can see an example of this on the Andrew Warner profile on lalawag. Scroll to the bottom of the interview to see the aggregated experience. The page immediately gets more value and longevity. No matter when you view it, the page contains all the latest info about Andrew. Doing this is also very easy with technologies like Simple Pie. - Relevancy
Creating and more importantly connecting relevant content is the new black. For both user experience and SEO, stitching relevant content together is vital. When I think about SEO today, I see that it is less about link stuffing and more about telling the machine a story. My characters are anchor text, my back-stories told through relevant linking. Next we need better tools to include achine-driven relevant content. - Recirculation
AOL, specifically their Web Logs Inc division does this like masters. The one blog, one domain play is limited. Build a network that can pass weight and recirculate your visitors. Get them into discovery mode and you’ll get 50+ page-views per session. Bolt on utilities and search solutions and you can keep them even longer.
So there’s a small taste of what I’ll be focusing on this year in online publishing. You can watch some of it starting over here, you can also share your own ideas in the comments.
How are you going to change online publishing this year?
On FriendFeed, this post was liked by 1 person and commented on 1 time 
January 26th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Excellent idea’s across the board. Sounds like your prepared for the new realities of the marketplace. You have already built a nice portfolio to date. Once you fully implement these idea’s( and I’m sure you’ll come up with a few more) you’ll hopefully be well rewarded for your efforts. As a reader , adding relevancy is something that would bring me back again. Are you talking about using semantic apps to bring this about, or something else? You seem to suggest it.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
[...] of Barack Obama has hit the web, he has been courting controversy- not to mention eyeballs How to Change Online Publishing in 2009 – seanpercival.com 01/26/2009 The blog, the log, the weblog, wordpresses, journals both live and [...]
January 26th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
I hate blogging because it forces you to work hard for something that will live for 24 hours. Waste of time. What you’re describing lives longer and is more valuable for readers.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
@andrew
very true, while some blogging is most defiantly disposable (celeb gossip for example). many pages die after 24 hours as you say. By including aggregation those pages can live longer, through better recirculation and SEO those pages can also rise to the top longer.
Something as simple as adding the wordpress related pages plugin is a good place to start folks!
January 27th, 2009 at 1:11 am
Sean, these are all great points and interesting ones at that. I actually never really thought about the recirculation for some of the stuff im launching, but, now I might have to build that in as part of my strategy.
February 1st, 2009 at 7:48 pm
I love what you’re saying here, Sean. Especially what you said about exposing authors. I’m building my own blog network this year as well, and I put everything I have into everything I write. It would be a wonderful thing for the best writers to get some recognition. Besides, the quality of the whole would rise if people had to place their name and face with more prominence.
I just found your site this morning, but it’s really terrific. My name is Sean too, by the way.
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Like the last commenter, I too just found your blog this morning and am in the midst of attempting to slowly build out my own blog network. Just wanted to say hi and second Sean’s approval for the idea of exposing writers — might also work as an incentive to get interesting and established writers involved and invested for a turn at doing an entry or even a column
February 3rd, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Thought provoking post, and timely. We’re busy with the same thing at work at present and this article is a real eye opener.
I agree with Andrew Warner that the time of one blog post on it’s own is a waste. More than ever we are seeking ways to get more mileage out of a single piece of content, and repackage it for different mediums.
I could not agree more when it comes to the saying that ‘content is king’, but nowadays, it more like ‘useful content is king but only if it’s well connected and interconnected to other similar, relevant stuff.’
March 15th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
[...] How to change online publishing in 2009 – An interesting article where Sean talks about what he is going to do in 2009 to change the way he blogs. [...]