better blogging

I’m a little behind the times, but I recently discovered bloglines. Oh boy, it all rhymes.

Anyway, I’m loving the blogreader right now. I was always a little wary of it, ‘cos when I first registered it was a bit clunkier, I liked having my top 5 (until one of them disappeared off the face of the earth, thankyou very much Mister Colman!) and there was something ritualistic about making my way through my ever-growing list of bookmarks. The problem with it was I was starting to miss out on good posts by those I didn’t check everyday and I was getting a bit stuck in just hanging out in the same old places, not having time to really get to know any new spaces.

After coming up to speed, culling a few dead weights and organising my folders, I've been able to keep track of all my usual blogging boys and girls (even on dial-up), plus i've got a swag of new ones i'm checking out too!

some of my new old faves include

speechification (it's like a 5-for-the-price-of-1 special of ace bloggers from around the sphere, featuring some old faves like dan from cityofsound, russell davies and steve bowbrick, king of shaves)

crackunit by iain tait

hot cross haiku, instigated by ian row, but a collaborative affair

johnnie moore

and we made this

(does that cover the tag, Simon/Marcus?)

with all these great blogs i'm reading, I'm getting slight blogging envy too. I want my blog to be cooler, cover more interesting stuff, instigate heated debate, or something.

which makes it kind of interesting that i should stumble upon this meme on another new art blog: laketrees. i'm not a huge meme huffer, but i though i might do this one, as opposed to the 'what star sign are you/how many boys did you kiss last week/which brand of mp3 player do you use' type meme:


The Blogging Better Meme
by Sueblimely, via laketrees

The most important thing I have learned over the last year.
I met so many of my blogging buds last year that the most important thing i learned was that my blog is important. it's important for me to write about the stuff i do, as a tool for processing interesting thoughts. and it's a vital tool for me to make connections with people from all over the place (and believe me, some of them are all over the place). it is actually participation within a community of information and experience and i think on some level that's important.

What I would like to achieve within the next year.
"i want my blog to be cooler, cover more interesting stuff, instigate heated debate, or something."

What I wish to learn more about.
I want to learn more about electronics, and global politics, and books - i still can't find any hot new blogs about books, and urban socio-dynamics, and windpower, and the history of melbourne. phew!

How could I be more productive?
I could probably start by getting myself a broadband connection. And a new job. From what I can tell, when you start a new job, your blogging goes up.

And seriously, I think i'll try to write in word first and transfer it over - that seems to save a bit of time. And maybe give mobile photo blogging a whirl.

One new thing I plan to try.
see above. and i'm going to try and stick to that 'this week at the galleries' business this year. i like doing it and it seems to fill a small gap in melbourne art blogging-ness. i'm also going to try to dip into critical theory a bit more, every now and again.

The blogging tip{s) I have found the most useful
Of all the incredibly daggy conversations i had about blogging last year, i don't think i ever had a proper publishing tip. but i have noticed that accurately tagging my posts makes a difference. And keeping the posts short, that's useful.

UPDATE:
Doddsy, in his infinite paternalistic care and wisdom, has given me some invaluable publishing tips:

1) Write regularly.
2) Briefer is better - but that doesn't mean dumbing down. There's a skill to writing less.
3) Link to new people (and to me daily of course) and you may thus draw in people willing to actively debate. I've no idea how you get people to comment - but i think it's down to the type of people one attracts.

The 4 (or more) people I am passing this on to. (please include someone quite new to blogging if you can - to help them along by introducing them to your own readers and giving them some backlinks).
i'm not really going to pass it onto anyone. people can pinch it if they like, but.