I was on vacation when David Beisel posted this piece: Stop! You Shouldn’t Blog. The Risks of Professional Blogging, in which he related a discussion he had had with another VC about the negative implications of blogging (as/for a VC). The main points of contention were:

Blogging is viewed by many as a fad. Whether or not this ultimately bears to be true, the viewpoint is a real one. Should one associate their career and personal brand with a trend that perhaps may fall by the wayside? What will be the reputational effect if/when one stops blogging? Bloggers are sometimes perceived to have many negative attributes. Some believe that bloggers are overly-bearing “used-car salesman-types” in selling themselves or the extremely ego-centric people who speak the loudest but don’t really know what they are talking about. Professionals (especially VCs) should have a network already to leverage; blogging could signal … Read more »

After losing the "fruit of my labor" (blog posts) a couple of times because network or server errors, I decided to look for a Windows-based blog posting tool that would allow me to prepare posts offline, save my work locally and post at the first (network connection) opportunity. As I was packing for the holidays, and I knew that Internet access would be limited at least the first week, I started seeking the "perfect" tool – based on my requirements:

Ability to save posts locally, post drafts and final versions, modify previous posts Support for standard blog features: categories, turning on/off comments and trackbacks, sending trackbacks, etc. Ability to configure multiple blog accounts since I am now authoring two different blogs, and contributing to a few others, on different blogging platforms Offering Wysiwyg editing  with direct access to HTML, spell checking with multiple dictionaries, etc. Dealing with multimedia uploads automatically (i.e no need to pronounce dark incantations to add a … Read more »

Just got an email from Six Apart announcing that as a TypePad user, I now had the option of displaying ads on my blog in a custom typelist. It is actually not a surprise since the deal was sealed and announced last November.

Bloggers have been using Google or Yahoo ads on their blog for the longest time, and the most heavily read have been making some money. So what I am missing here is why would I need to upgrade to the Pro version of TypePad in order to use that functionality which is otherwise available to me "for free" ?

The ad revenue is credited against the monthly cost of the TypePad Pro subscription ($15). Which means basically that one needs to have roughly 20,000 page views (at a 50c CPM) in order to make up the difference between a Plus and a Pro subscription, or 30,000 page views between … Read more »

Tim Bray has published a piece AdSense For Feeds, Say What? that summarizes my own experience.

Upon learning about the availability of AdSense for Feeds ("AFF"), I was keen to try it out. So I went to the registration page, and started reading the Terms and Conditions (yes, I try and read these things).

Whilst I was happy to give a shot to estimate the number of subscribers of my RSS feeds, the "T&C" language related to  "Responsibility for Feed Users" felt downright creepy:

[...] You agree you will be responsible and liable for any and all use of the AFF Ads by any feed user and will indemnify Google for any lawsuit or proceeding (a) relating to or arising from any feed user’s use of AFF; (b) relating to or arising from Your failure to ensure any feed user’s compliance with the terms of the amended Agreement; and/or (c) brought by a … Read more »

Jeff "BuzzMachine" Jarvis has just announced in his post "Onward" that he had left his job at Advance.net to do *a lot* of new things, "all related to changing news and to citizens’ media".

So what will Jeff (who I know from his board involvement at Moreover Technologies) do in his new incarnation, as Buzzmachine LLC ? Check this out:

Work on content development About.com, working with Martin Nisenholtz at The New York Times Company Act as editor in chief of a new (stealth) news start-up Work with the new City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism as the school launches Hanging out my consulting shingle to take on a few good projects Write a book And of course, blog, blog, blog, and blog.

Most of these tasks would be close to full time for most of us, but the man is not like… most of us. So best of luck Jeff, and see you around.

… Read more »

Tony Gentile over at buzzhit asked a few questions re Do you read or run a managed feed?. I thought I might as well share these answers through a post. Here we go:

My questions to readers of managed Feeds are:

A) Does the fact that a Feed is being managed effect your willingness to subscribe to it?Not really, except if being managed leads to the feed to be easy to subscribe to. If I am interested in a blog, I will try to find a way to add it to my rssreader (NewsGator). My OPML file will then make its way into Bloglines so that I can read my feeds on the road, or on my phone.

B) Does the fact that a Feed is managed impact your reading experience? If so, how?Splicing of del.icio.us or flickr pictures in a blog feed can be annoying, depending on the relative number of posts. I would always suggest to … Read more »