17 tips for those who want to write about them bloggers
I edit the blog Boing Boing , which is terribly popular ( Technorati says that we are among the five most popular blogs), so quite a lot of people want me to write about them. It's cool - I love it when they offer to write about something good. One I could not find anything.
But often I can't write about what people send me, because those who sent the material threw something wild that makes life difficult for bloggers. I can assume that if your goal is to remain anonymous, then this may be a feature, but if you started a website specifically for people to hear about you, then showing hostility towards bloggers is most likely a bug.
What is hostility to bloggers? I made a list of signs for the last couple months. These are simple design and presentation errors, which prevent me from taking a link and reposting it to where it can be found by millions. Here is a list, like an anti-checklist for anyone who spends money and time trying to get something across to the general public:
')
You must have a link. Seriously: if you want bloggers to link to you, you must have something to refer to. Your future TV show, protest march, product or tournament will not get on blogs if you haven't reported it anywhere on the net.
You must have a permanent address. Do not easily change the main page of your site every time you present a new speaker in a series of speeches. The blogger who will refer to the main page of your site today in his post about the upcoming performance of Philo T Farnsworth wants this link to continue to be used and not refer to the announcement of the Paris Hilton speech when you change the address to the next a week Put on a separate, permanently accessible pages all that you want bloggers to write about.
You must have a separate link to each item. It's bad when there is only one page with ten different articles. If bloggers link to the very top of your fifty-screen page and advertise something from the middle of this “sheet”, they will receive two hundred letters from readers who could not find what was mentioned.
Use these links. Do not use links with expiring session keys that would be meaningless if someone wants to return to them later. If a blogger cannot share a link with a friend or post it online, he will not bring people to you, and they will not see your creations. Also, do not use giant 800-character unreadable URLs filled with meaningless compotes of long identifiers - if the link cannot be copied to IRC without breaking the lines, some part of the IRC will not be able to follow this link.
Use links leading to pages. Do not use Javascript that generates pop-up windows or pages whose address is about (). Remember: if you can not refer to something, then blogs and do not refer. Moreover, any page that changes the size of the window, automatically starts playing the sound, or in some way changes the user's settings to suit your personal taste - will surely bring complaints to the heads of hapless bloggers who refer to such a page.
Flash sites suck. Designers, architects and artists, it concerns you. Creating your site as one big Flash applet, without internal links, without the ability to copy a small piece of text to an article or email, without the ability to link to a separate page - all this will lead to the fact that a bunch of bloggers and reviewers just pass by. In addition, such sites remain invisible to search engines. Even if your entire graduating class has made a flash portfolio for itself - abandon this vicious practice, and then your site will work for you, unlike the rest, which are lost in the blind spot of search engines and bloggers.
PDF sucks. This is not a web page (I already wrote about this: "You must have a separate link to each element"). From a PDF file is very difficult to copy a piece of text. PDF in half the cases is not displayed in browsers. Web made from HTML.
Broadcasts and streams - sucks. Make it so that your video and audio files can be downloaded. It happens that a person has an unstable connection through which your broadcast will not break through. And that's what - it's like an obvious thing, but just in case: do not use DRM. DRM does not allow people to see the files, for this purpose this thing was invented. If the file cannot be seen, it will not get into the blog.
Put the URL of your site on your pictures. If you have funny pictures or other graphic files, add your URL to the bottom of some unobtrusive font. Thus, if a blogger finds your picture on any Russian site where he doesn’t link to the original source, he will be able to type this URL separately and go to your site (this also applies to video files and ID3 tags on MP3 files) ).
Attempts to create a “policy” that prohibits linking to your site are utter nonsense. There is neither a law nor a way to allow you to control who links to your site (as well as the law or the way to control who in the street pokes a finger in the direction of your office). If such a “policy”, among other conditions of using your website, was advised to you to have a lawyer, then this lawyer is an idiot, and he must return you the money you paid him. It’s like standing on the lawn in front of your house and shaking your fist with an airplane flying in the sky, shouting “Wander out of my clouds!” - you look just as silly if you fasten to the site a threatening text to anyone who thinks of referring to you. At best, bloggers will giggle contemptuously, and then go to link somewhere else.
Do not be fooled by the topic of "theft of traffic." Site owners have raised a terrible bug about people who put direct links to pictures from external sites, thereby "overloading" their server. Dear site owners, take a pretty penny, buy yourself a terabyte from Amazon S3 and have a good time complaining. In the Mesozoic era, I remember, such links could really turn into serious money. If your hosting service charges you at exorbitant prices for traffic, although it is 2008 in the yard, change the hosting. If you put your URL on all your pictures (I wrote about this above), then all these links will only bring a bunch of people to your site, and the incoming traffic will be equal to outgoing. This is a much more effective way to advertise than aGoogle contextual advertising (NSDQ: GOOG), with much more accurately targeted to the target audience. The same goes for “framing” - when an external site is loaded into a separate frame on a certain site.
Hang pictures with good resolution . Especially if they illustrate any product for sale or some news - it is always more convenient for bloggers to work with large pictures from which you can cut out a piece of your own, before hanging it in your post.
Forget about Javascript "copyright protection". On some sites, stupid Javascript pops up when you try to save a picture with a right click. Do not use this script. That is, we understood everything: you do not like people to copy your pictures. We will pass by. Enjoy your obscurity.
Do not overdo it with legal problems. If on every page of your site there is a line like “© 2008 OOO Paranoia & Co., all rights reserved; reproduction of information posted on the site without permission is prohibited, ”bloggers can catch you at a word and write about someone else’s site. You do not need any such wording. You have all the rights that you need, from the moment you create your content - in any country that signed the Bern Convention. Your overly zealous lawyer scares away bloggers who can tell the whole world about you.
Let the bloggers know exactly how you want to be referenced. If you post some text or a picture on the site, hoping that bloggers will pick up and distribute it over the network, add a note with a link, for example: “Max Kodak's Photograph, www.maxkodakphotos.com ”
Creative Commons license frees bloggers from guessing game. About 90 percent of what bloggers do is potentially violating copyright law and exists under the shaky formulation of “fair use”, which means that you can hire a lawyer if someone decides to sue you for infringing his right. Creative Commons is a non-profit initiative to create a series of standard and universal licenses that will help you convey to everyone the terms on which you agree to allow copying your property. If you want people on the network to talk about what you are doing (and on the network, “talk” essentially means “copy”), you definitely need to use a Creative Commons license.
Finally: tell bloggers about yourself in the way they prefer. In the most popular blogs, as a rule, there is a link to how to propose new topics. Sometimes it's an email, sometimes it's a form. Suggestions sent to the wrong address or in the wrong way are an annoying factor. Bloggers are people who live online; and like people living on the web, they have a million familiar ways to deal with a variety of routine correspondence. If an offer to write about your site gets into the wrong box, it will be rejected at the stage of automatic sorting, and may not reach the addressee. For example, Boing Boing is literally riddled with links to a page describing how to send us offers. In the case of Boing Boing, proposals should be sent through the form.
To indulge in blogging publicity, you need to be able to keep a delicate balance between controlling your content and publicity: the more jealously you try to control the distribution of your content, the more you load it with various reservations, which ultimately prevent information from spreading significantly through the network. The network consists of links, copied code fragments and text, processed images and icons. Working in harmony with the traditions of the network, and not against these traditions - this is the key to success.
Posted by: Cory Doctorow. Original (English): 17 Tips For Bloggers To Write About You
Translation © ouch_my_brain, ruguevara , RealMan, teinett using the service translated.by .
If you find clumsiness in translation, you can help improve its quality , it is very simple.
But often I can't write about what people send me, because those who sent the material threw something wild that makes life difficult for bloggers. I can assume that if your goal is to remain anonymous, then this may be a feature, but if you started a website specifically for people to hear about you, then showing hostility towards bloggers is most likely a bug.
What is hostility to bloggers? I made a list of signs for the last couple months. These are simple design and presentation errors, which prevent me from taking a link and reposting it to where it can be found by millions. Here is a list, like an anti-checklist for anyone who spends money and time trying to get something across to the general public:
')
You must have a link. Seriously: if you want bloggers to link to you, you must have something to refer to. Your future TV show, protest march, product or tournament will not get on blogs if you haven't reported it anywhere on the net.
You must have a permanent address. Do not easily change the main page of your site every time you present a new speaker in a series of speeches. The blogger who will refer to the main page of your site today in his post about the upcoming performance of Philo T Farnsworth wants this link to continue to be used and not refer to the announcement of the Paris Hilton speech when you change the address to the next a week Put on a separate, permanently accessible pages all that you want bloggers to write about.
You must have a separate link to each item. It's bad when there is only one page with ten different articles. If bloggers link to the very top of your fifty-screen page and advertise something from the middle of this “sheet”, they will receive two hundred letters from readers who could not find what was mentioned.
Use these links. Do not use links with expiring session keys that would be meaningless if someone wants to return to them later. If a blogger cannot share a link with a friend or post it online, he will not bring people to you, and they will not see your creations. Also, do not use giant 800-character unreadable URLs filled with meaningless compotes of long identifiers - if the link cannot be copied to IRC without breaking the lines, some part of the IRC will not be able to follow this link.
Use links leading to pages. Do not use Javascript that generates pop-up windows or pages whose address is about (). Remember: if you can not refer to something, then blogs and do not refer. Moreover, any page that changes the size of the window, automatically starts playing the sound, or in some way changes the user's settings to suit your personal taste - will surely bring complaints to the heads of hapless bloggers who refer to such a page.
Flash sites suck. Designers, architects and artists, it concerns you. Creating your site as one big Flash applet, without internal links, without the ability to copy a small piece of text to an article or email, without the ability to link to a separate page - all this will lead to the fact that a bunch of bloggers and reviewers just pass by. In addition, such sites remain invisible to search engines. Even if your entire graduating class has made a flash portfolio for itself - abandon this vicious practice, and then your site will work for you, unlike the rest, which are lost in the blind spot of search engines and bloggers.
Other sludge
PDF sucks. This is not a web page (I already wrote about this: "You must have a separate link to each element"). From a PDF file is very difficult to copy a piece of text. PDF in half the cases is not displayed in browsers. Web made from HTML.
Broadcasts and streams - sucks. Make it so that your video and audio files can be downloaded. It happens that a person has an unstable connection through which your broadcast will not break through. And that's what - it's like an obvious thing, but just in case: do not use DRM. DRM does not allow people to see the files, for this purpose this thing was invented. If the file cannot be seen, it will not get into the blog.
Put the URL of your site on your pictures. If you have funny pictures or other graphic files, add your URL to the bottom of some unobtrusive font. Thus, if a blogger finds your picture on any Russian site where he doesn’t link to the original source, he will be able to type this URL separately and go to your site (this also applies to video files and ID3 tags on MP3 files) ).
Attempts to create a “policy” that prohibits linking to your site are utter nonsense. There is neither a law nor a way to allow you to control who links to your site (as well as the law or the way to control who in the street pokes a finger in the direction of your office). If such a “policy”, among other conditions of using your website, was advised to you to have a lawyer, then this lawyer is an idiot, and he must return you the money you paid him. It’s like standing on the lawn in front of your house and shaking your fist with an airplane flying in the sky, shouting “Wander out of my clouds!” - you look just as silly if you fasten to the site a threatening text to anyone who thinks of referring to you. At best, bloggers will giggle contemptuously, and then go to link somewhere else.
Do not be fooled by the topic of "theft of traffic." Site owners have raised a terrible bug about people who put direct links to pictures from external sites, thereby "overloading" their server. Dear site owners, take a pretty penny, buy yourself a terabyte from Amazon S3 and have a good time complaining. In the Mesozoic era, I remember, such links could really turn into serious money. If your hosting service charges you at exorbitant prices for traffic, although it is 2008 in the yard, change the hosting. If you put your URL on all your pictures (I wrote about this above), then all these links will only bring a bunch of people to your site, and the incoming traffic will be equal to outgoing. This is a much more effective way to advertise than aGoogle contextual advertising (NSDQ: GOOG), with much more accurately targeted to the target audience. The same goes for “framing” - when an external site is loaded into a separate frame on a certain site.
Hang pictures with good resolution . Especially if they illustrate any product for sale or some news - it is always more convenient for bloggers to work with large pictures from which you can cut out a piece of your own, before hanging it in your post.
Forget about Javascript "copyright protection". On some sites, stupid Javascript pops up when you try to save a picture with a right click. Do not use this script. That is, we understood everything: you do not like people to copy your pictures. We will pass by. Enjoy your obscurity.
Balance between control and publicity
Do not overdo it with legal problems. If on every page of your site there is a line like “© 2008 OOO Paranoia & Co., all rights reserved; reproduction of information posted on the site without permission is prohibited, ”bloggers can catch you at a word and write about someone else’s site. You do not need any such wording. You have all the rights that you need, from the moment you create your content - in any country that signed the Bern Convention. Your overly zealous lawyer scares away bloggers who can tell the whole world about you.
Let the bloggers know exactly how you want to be referenced. If you post some text or a picture on the site, hoping that bloggers will pick up and distribute it over the network, add a note with a link, for example: “Max Kodak's Photograph, www.maxkodakphotos.com ”
Creative Commons license frees bloggers from guessing game. About 90 percent of what bloggers do is potentially violating copyright law and exists under the shaky formulation of “fair use”, which means that you can hire a lawyer if someone decides to sue you for infringing his right. Creative Commons is a non-profit initiative to create a series of standard and universal licenses that will help you convey to everyone the terms on which you agree to allow copying your property. If you want people on the network to talk about what you are doing (and on the network, “talk” essentially means “copy”), you definitely need to use a Creative Commons license.
Finally: tell bloggers about yourself in the way they prefer. In the most popular blogs, as a rule, there is a link to how to propose new topics. Sometimes it's an email, sometimes it's a form. Suggestions sent to the wrong address or in the wrong way are an annoying factor. Bloggers are people who live online; and like people living on the web, they have a million familiar ways to deal with a variety of routine correspondence. If an offer to write about your site gets into the wrong box, it will be rejected at the stage of automatic sorting, and may not reach the addressee. For example, Boing Boing is literally riddled with links to a page describing how to send us offers. In the case of Boing Boing, proposals should be sent through the form.
To indulge in blogging publicity, you need to be able to keep a delicate balance between controlling your content and publicity: the more jealously you try to control the distribution of your content, the more you load it with various reservations, which ultimately prevent information from spreading significantly through the network. The network consists of links, copied code fragments and text, processed images and icons. Working in harmony with the traditions of the network, and not against these traditions - this is the key to success.
Posted by: Cory Doctorow. Original (English): 17 Tips For Bloggers To Write About You
Translation © ouch_my_brain, ruguevara , RealMan, teinett using the service translated.by .
If you find clumsiness in translation, you can help improve its quality , it is very simple.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/288146/
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