The Cosmopolitan Blog

Mitch Joel, today, in his TwistImage blog revealed some alarming statistics about young teens and how so many of them have electronically posted/sent some form of “nude or semi-nude photographic or video images of themselves” or received someone else’s. He questions whether this will lead to further sexual activities in even younger children.

My comment on his blog was this:

I think kids will always find new ways to push the sexual boundaries, each generation pushed it one step further. If it wasn’t online nudity, it would be something else.

But for us pre-internet adults, the other reason we value privacy is because we are worried about who is out there that will abuse of this information and come and stalk us or our kids.

8-10 years ago, I was one of the first people i knew to have a “personal website” containing my resume and a bit about my life. Others around me were shocked that i would make this information public.

8-10 years ago, not many people had a website, so my info was probably easier to be found by predators. Today, EVERYONE is one facebook, and if you think you have scandalous pictures of yourself, don’t worry, someone probably has worse.

Suddenly. you become anonymous in this sea of personal information.

So, i wonder, are our traditional fears still rational? Online predators exist, we know that, but if EVERYONE is sharing their information, doesn’t it make it harder for them to find YOUR kid?

Has private information become less valuable and more of a commodity?

I would like to hear your thoughts. Is the definition of privacy changing? Should we no longer be scared of posting private information online? What about for our kids? Do they have a point, now, when they say “but mom! everyone’s doing it!”?

This is fun. CNN and Facebook have joined forced so you can create a political badge. You get to actually pick your top 3 issues, and then, answer some questions about those issues, so that you can see where you stand on the political spectrum.

See my CNN / Facebook politcal badge

Blogs are funny that way. They’re a historical log of your thoughts and opinions over time. Except that sometimes, your opinions change, so it’s worth remembering to post updates. So here’s me making an update to a post dating back 6 months called “Someone Please Explain Twitter To Me” to state that i am still a Twitter user, i’m addicted, I’ve integrated it into my blog, my facebook account, all my desktops and into my life, and still, i don’t understand it!

I don’t make very many twitter updates, considering some people twitter every 2 minutes, but apparently what i say matters, because i now officially have more “followers” of my updates than i have people following me (apparently, that’s a good thing, say the experts). I still agree with someone who commented on my previous post, that this just means i have an extra 20 stalkers (YAY!), but the good news is i get to “meet” people, and out of those 20 stalkers, 1 might actually have something insightful to say other than that he had sushi for dinner.

Turns out that twitterers (well those on my list anyway) are all quite techy, which suits me just fine, so i end up hearing of events, podcasts, posts and conferences that are sometimes interesting. Also, there is what is known as “twitter royalty”, such as Robert Scoble et al., and well, I’m not sure what to think of those guys other than they’re funny sometimes and conceited most of the time, but definitely worth following.

After all that, though, Twitter has become something i love to hate. I’m in touch with a bunch of strangers, and it takes time out of my day for nothing, and it serves no purpose whatsoever… just the way i like my applications.

So i’m back to exploring how to best promote a blog, and realized that i a friend of mine owns a very prominent blog, and here’s the recipe to his success: find yourself a niche, make sure it’s not to restrictive but not too widespread, stick to it, post often and promote it.

This is nothing new. But it’s important, and it’s really the bottom line. Blogs are amazing still, because they are indexed by search engines a million times faster than static websites, simply because their content changes so quickly. Which is why, for example, when in summer i wrote about Al Gore, minutes later, i noticed that my post was featured on Al Gore’s Live Earth website. So, deconstructing the advice above, we have:

1. Find yourself a niche

You need to be a specialist in your topic. No, that doesn’t mean you have to have a degree in it. It just means you have to have something to offer in that topic. People have to have a reason to come to your blog, whether it’s just that you understand a specific topic, that you have great political insight, or that you’re a master at a playing a specific game. So pick a niche, it them becomes “your thing” that you’re known for.

2. Make sure it’s neither too restrictive or too widespread

Well, now that you’ve found your niche, let’s see. Are there only 3 other people interested in your topic? In the entire world? If so, while your blog may be the center of the universe for those 3 people, it won’t be for very many other people, so your blog probably won’t get a world-famous reputation. On the other hand, if your niche is discussing the latest Hollywood scandal or when the last time we spotted Britney Spear’s underwear (or lack thereof), then, well, um, you may not be the only person who talks about this, and so your message will get diluted in the masses. For your blog to gain a reputation, then, will be extremely difficult.

3. Stick to it

If you found a topic / niche, then stick to it. Don’t go talking about other stuff, because that’s not what you’re known for. If you digress too often, readers will stop coming. If you have a million topics (good tip, check the number of categories you have, there should be max 3-4), it will be hard for readers to understand what the value of your blog is, and so promoting it will be tough.

4. Post often

Well, this is the nature of a blog, it’s meant to be alive. If your topic is amazing, people will want to come and read. But if nothing gets updated, then they’ll come once, read what is there, and be done with it. If they see there is a new post every 4-5 days, then they will subscribe to your RSS feed, and keep up to date with what you’re saying.

5. Promote it

Write posts that encourage people to comment, thus generating traffic and discussion, again, a surefire way to promote your blog. Then, of course, use the tools out there to stretch your word. Link to your blog from Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Technorati, and even Facebook and Twitter if you want! Go visit other similar sites, and comment on their posts, remembering to link to your blog. Allow trackbacks to your posts/blog. Keep up to date with the latest places where you can promote, and that way you can be one of the first!

Well, now, all i need to do is eat some of my own dogfood, right? My readers will know that i don’t post often enough, if fact, i go through 3-4 day spurts where i post a lot, then i’m silent for a long time (ahem, *cough* *cough* 2 months *cough* *cough*). But this will change now that i have a super tool to update my blog with my twitter updates. The other thing i know would make my blog more popular is if i stuck to one topic, not tried to tackle politics, food, blogging and personal opinions, and if at least one of those topic was a little more “niche-ish”. Ah well, i never claimed by blog was perfect, i just like to use it to ramble

I just turned 33. And I just had the best birthday week i could have hoped for. See, when you’re 33, birthdays are just another day, I don’t necessarily care that i’m at work that day or that i won’t end up drunk and passed out somewhere by the end of the night. Apparently, in your 30s, you also realize that whether or not you actually get drunk is not the deciding factor on whether you had a nice evening or not.

So this year, i decided to leave it to the Gods. I made no plans, had no expectations, didn’t pre-warm anyone that this day was coming up, and even had a laundry list of errands that i was perfectly willing to run on my birthday weekend. And you know what? When you have no expectations, it’s amazing, because ANYTHING that happens is a bonus. Seriously.

For starters, there’s facebook (hahaha, that’s funny… it’s my birthday post and i’m commenting on how awesome a piece of technology is… *sigh* there really is no hope for geeks like me). Anyway, as one of my friends posted on my wall, “facebook means never missing another birthday”. Because there’s this little thing on the right sidebar that tells you a days in advance when someone’s birthday is. So all these people i connected with wrote on my wall, sent me free gifts, remembered to send me e-greetings, it was all very um… e-fun! Ok, so the number of physical birthday cards (you know, those that you can actually touch and that you receive through your mailbox, you know, the mailbox outside your house, remember that one?) decreases a little, but it’s ok, i’m in my 30s, which means that people of my generation actually still know what they are (phew, there is still hope for the world) and i still got a few.

ok, so my morning (at work, may i remind you) was filled with birthday calls, birthday wall postings and birthday e-cards. I imagined that was going to be the most fun i was gonna get that day, but then, 5 of my colleagues (remember, this is a company where no one does anything for anyone’s birthday apart from sign a card that always ends up on your desk a couple days late anyway) got together to buy me a cake and left it on my desk for me to find when i got back from lunch. So i invited them all to tea and cake in the company kitchen, it was lovely. Meanwhile, all my college friends from Boston called me, one at a time, so we got to catch up on a whole lot of gossip. Of course, by then, i had done NO work whatsoever… ssshhh, don’t tell anyone. So then, 2 other colleagues bought me candy from the local store downstairs, and if that wasn’t enough, the owner gave me a 3rd one free after realizing it was my birthday.

So after i had put on 10lbs in one afternoon, i went home and vegged. It was Thursday, so i knew that nothing would happen until the next evening. The good thing about having family in town is that, if they love you just a little, in theory, they’re gonna do SOMEthing, even tiny. So, i just assumed my sister would get me a cake, invite cousins over and that would be that. But no, somehow, this wasn’t the case. And it was awesome, because i didn’t expect it. She picked a new place, a Brazilian restaurant i will review shortly, planned everything from the guestlist to the transportation to…. yep, coordinating the surprise arrival of my best friend and her hubby, all the way from Ottawa. It was awesome, we were all at the restaurant already when the surprise guests showed up, and i was totally not expecting it. I got some awesome gifts, my uncle was even considerate enough to throw in a couple toys for my cat!

Saturday, i had a potluck brunch with all my girlfriends, where i was showered with even more gifts and cards, and then went out for drinks in the evening with a couple other people. I spend Sunday seeing other friends and spending a leisurely afternoon in the sunny Old Port of Montreal.

So i want to thank everyone who made my birthday so special.

Too often, we assume that because it’s a birthday, or it’s New Years Eve, or it’s Valentine’s Day, then something special HAS to happen. We put so much pressure on ourselves! Instead, relax! Why not just go in with no expectations, seriously, try it, I highly recommend it. Any event then takes on a whole new dimension of awesome!