Chapter 11-Doing it Right

You know all those Corporate Tips, Scoble has been posting since February? We've assembled them into this Chapter.  We've tweaked them a bit and made them more suitable for book form.  Please let us know what you think of them, and if there are more tips we overlooked.

Chapter 11--Doing it Right

"The trouble with doing something right the first time, is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was."                                            --Walt West

The two previous chapters cover the realities and fables of the darkside of blogging. If you are still reading Naked Conversations, then chances are likely you have either already started blogging or you are considering doing so. This chapter and the next are dedicated to helping you understand some of blogging’s finer points—not the tools and technologies but the techniques and guidelines that have worked for a great many successful bloggers to date. It’s also identifies many of the little details that can polish your blog into a fine gem.

Here are our Top 11 Tips on How to Do it Right. We hesitate to call them Best Practices, not just, because the term has become a traditional marketing cliché, but also because blogging is too new and dynamic to have any “tried and true practices.”  Scoble first published these practices, in draft form, on our Naked Conversations book blog. Several were improved or expanded by reader comments.

Tip #1 What’s in a name? Search Results, that’s what.

When our publisher, Joe Wikert started a blog called The Average Joe, in February 2005, he made a common first mistake. He didn't think through his title. Quick: What does "The Average Joe" mean to you?

It doesn't mean anything to us. It's like wheat flour. No shape. No meaning. If this were just a personal blog, it'd be okay , but even then, a more specific title makes your blog easier to discover by people who may care about your subject and may be interested in your products or services.

Think about someone searching Google. Why would someone want to read Joe's blog? What could he or she possibly enter that would return “The Average Joe” as the top-ranked response?

Your blog’s name can help you own your Markey niche. Suppose someone named Paula wanted to make and sell baked goods from her home in San Carlos, California. What’s the better blog title: “My blog about something made with flour,” or “Paula’s San Carlos bread blog?

Let’s go back to Google, MSN or Yahoo Search—they all work pretty much the same. By now, you probably understand how important search engines are to your business and how blogs impact them. A while back we were looking for a book publisher. So how did we search? Our first query, as we recall,  was something like "book publisher blog." Joe didn’t have his blog yet, but if he did, we assume he would have wanted us to find him and with his title, we probably would have missed him completely. We brainstormed for the words to enter that would help us find the right book publisher. A few we recall trying:

Book publisher problem (or “hate,” “sucks,” or “avoid”)
How do you get a book published?
Negotiating book publisher contracts
Best business book publisher
Author favorite business book publisher
How to write a book
How to get a book author deal
Getting your book written

Before you enter your title, spend some time, perhaps an hour, doing some search variations. There are tools to help you come up with searches on your own, as well as  tons of sites that'll help you better understand how people searching for information think. Search for "Danny Sullivan" or "John Battelle" and you'll find lots of search-engine optimization (SEO) tricks to help you.

But let’s go back to Joe.  After all our attempts, we noticed four recurring  words in our entries: "publishing," "author," "writing" and "book." So, those are the words Joe should want in his title tag to optimize search engine results.  And, he should still include his name, because blogs are personal and because he’s unique.

How about: “Joe Wikert's book authoring and publishing blog?” Sounds boring, right? But here's why it's important. Go to a blog search service like Feedster. Enter in "publishing," and see what comes back. Notice that the blog title is underneath each post. Now, what's the likelihood that you'll click on somebody with the name "Joe's average blog?" Compare that to how likely you'll be to click on something that says "Joe Wikert's book authoring and publishing blog."

Joe can improve it further. He already has something most of us don't: authority. He's an executive at a publicly traded book publisher that's over a hundred years old and had four of the top 25 best-selling business books in 2004, according to the New York Times. So, why not reflect in the title tagline?

“Joe Wikert, Wiley's book publishing executive can get you published”

We would have clicked there in a minute.

When we first posted this tip on our book blog, the comments were quick to point out  the title Average Joe seemed no more bland then “The Red Couch,” which would be the first of several working titles for this book before we settled on Naked Conversations. In fact, we were even more concerned about our publisher’s reaction, since our advance royalty checks had not yet arrived.

As Wikert recalled it five months later, “I took your advice and changed the title to "The Average Joe: A Book Publisher Blog". Shortly after making this small change, I went from almost nowhere to #1 in the results of a Google search on "book publisher blog.“I launched the blog on February 19th,” Wikert says “As of July 15, I've made 82 posts, had 353 comments and 46 TrackBacks and there are 43 links from 36 sites.” (And we’ve had our checks arrive relatively on time. Thanks, Joe)

“How has this helped our business“, Wikert continued. “Well, I'd be hard-pressed to give you any specifics here. I don't know how measurable this is today or will be in the future. I'd like to think that new authors are visiting, liking what they find and ultimately choosing Wiley as their publishing partner. I’ve tried to focus much of my posting attention on helping the new author. For example, I see that "royalty payment," "average advance", etc., are often the most popular search terms leading people to The Average Joe. As a result, I've tried to talk about every aspect of advances, royalties, etc., in my posts.”

That sounds a bit above average to us, Joe.

Tip #2 Read a bunch of blogs before you start.

Here's our advice for anyone thinking of blogging: read a large selection of blogs before you start. For that, we recommend you get an RSS News Aggregator. There's a bunch out there for both Windows and Macintoshes and you should choose one you like, usually for free. RSS is important. What’s important here is that RSS lets you cover much more ground than going to sites to look for updates in your browser. It is all delivered to your email, or your RSS aggregating application, and not only is it many times more efficient to read than with an old-school Web browser, but RSS avoids the spam problem that email suffers from.

Next, you want to use a blog search engine. We think all of them could be easier to use, but each keeps improving at its own pace. Feedster , IceRocket , or Technorati are best for beginners we think. PubSub gives you the best results via RSS subscription and has become our favorite as of this writing. Technorati tells you all about who’s linking to whom, which is very important. It’s a little hard to get used to, but once you do, it’s a good vehicle to see how each blog you like ranks, although Technorati is not always as current as we would hope (as of press time they were starting to get better, so you might want to do your own comparisons to see which service works best for you). You also can use an old-fashioned search engine if you remember to always type in the word “blog.” What you miss in traditional search engines is  currency. It often takes a couple of weeks for the search engines to pick up a new blog. That is changing, however. With some of the new engines you can be listed in a matter of days, or even hours.

With these simple, mostly free, tools you can now find any blog by any subject that interests you.

Let's say you're looking for blogs on "quilting." Well, you can just go over and do a search on quilting on any of those search engines. But, if you use an RSS News Aggregator, you can subscribe to the search now. That's really cool because anyone who uses the word "quilting" on a blog, from that point on, will automatically show up in your news aggregator. Most bloggers use it to search for what is written about their own name, company, or competitors and the common terms used in their business segments.

Here's the crux of the tip. If you read 50 blogs for two weeks and you don't have something to write on your blog to start it off , you probably aren't going to be a good blogger. But, we think you should stick around anyhow, so you can see what others of your industry have to say and comment whenever appropriate.

Tip #3—Keep it Simple. Keep it focused.

Most people enjoy just breezing through a great number of blogs in a short period of time. If you want people to talk about you, and pass around your information, make it easy for them.

Have each post contain just one idea, or one set of links. One guy who makes it hard is Mike Gunderloy. His page of links is one of the best for people who visit with a Web browser, but it’s Hell on bloggers who try to link to a single one of his entries. Influential bloggers watch sites like Mike’s via their RSS aggregators. Now, on a Web browser, Mike’s page looks great. But, look at it in RSS, and an entire day is one entry. That makes it very hard to email around. Imagine that there’s an item two-thirds of the way down his page that interests you. “Hey, Joe, check out the cell phone link here – scroll down two-thirds of the way down this entry,” you have towrite. That just isn’t as quick and easy as “Hey, Joe, check out this link.”

Now, to most people reading this book,  this might seem like a pedantic point, but let’s check out the stats. As of writing, Technorati says that 242 sites are linking to Mike’s blog, while Technorati reports 161 sites are linking to Scoble’s link blog (which has only been done for a fraction of the time that Gunderloy’s blog has been done). In other words, Scoble’s blog is getting a lot more links out on the blog in a lot less time.

Tip #4 Demonstrate passsion
Tip #5 Show your authority

We write these two together because they are separate components that need to be inseparable in your blogging. A good corporate blog is both passionate and authoritative. Passion alone does not make a point. Authority alone is boring.

How do you demonstrate your passion for a topic? One way is to post often. How often depends on how much competition you have and what kind of audience are you trying to build. When we look at Technorati and PubSub lists of the world’s most popular bloggers they all post more often than once a day.

Scoble list of favorites include: Engadget , Dave Winer, Microsoft’s Employee blogs , Misbehaving, Hugh Macleod , Joshua Micah Marshall’s Talking Points Memo Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit Doc Searls, Jeff Jarvis’ BuzzMachine, Daring Fireball, all of whom almost always blog at least once daily. Israel’s list of favorites is different and they don’t all post daily—but they do post at least 2-3 times each week. His includes BL Ochman's What’s Next, Spread Firefox, Ernie the Attorney, , the Loic, LeMeur blog , Seth Godin’s Blog , JD Lasica’s New Media Musings
and Joho the Blog .

Don't follow this rule blindly. There are days when you will not be in the mood, for one reason or another. Don’t force your blog on those days. One of Microsoft's most popular bloggers (at least he was until he stopped posting in 2004) was Christopher Brumme . His blog isn't one that most people would want to read. He works on the highly technical .NET Common Language Runtime team. He would post only once every month or so and his posts ran about 11,000 words. He ignored most of the tips we are offering here. Yet, he still was very popular with software developers, the only audience he cared about. Developers flocked to Brumme’s blog because he had no competition. There are few people with his technical knowledge and none who writing about the innards of .NET. So, he got away with posting infrequently and no one ever doubted his passion or his authority, which brings us to tip #5: showing your authority.

Hey, if you're Christopher Brumme, the world's top authority on compilers, all you have to do is write 11,000 word posts that show people how to use yours. But if you're a plumber, an automaker or an NBA team owner or a t-shirt maker, show off how your authority on the subjects you know.

That isn't as easy as it sounds, but start with showing us what it entails to do whatever it is you do. Look at how Thomas Mahon did it at the English Cut blog we talked about in Chapter 5, Small Companies—Long Reach. Mahon demonstrated what he knew about, cloth, fit, measuring and so on—everything about making suits. He showed pictures of suits in the making. He demonstrated he knew what he was doing.

Getting influential people with their own large audiences to link to your blog and vouch for its authority also brings you all sorts of benefits. For instance, one of the guys Scoble and Israel really trust is Doc Searls . We've been reading him for years and he's never abused our trust. So, when we read him and he links to something and says it's great, we trust him and confer that trust and authority onto the site he's linked to.

Get five people trusted bloggers to link to a new site and you’ve hit a home run. You might be able to fool one guy, but it's very hard to fool five.

Tip #6  Add Comments

A good blog is a conversation, not a one-way PR channel. Get over the fact that you won't have control. Instead, embrace the extension. If you don't allow comments your corporate blog is likely to be seen as a PR channel and will be far less likely to be either trusted or followed.

Tip #7 Be accessible

If you want something nice to unexpectedly happen to you, make it easy to contact you through your blog. We know of more than a few cases of people trying and failing to find bloggers through their sites, for conversations, getting together or to discuss job opportunities. It’s surprising how many people start conversations with blogs but foolishly choose to make themselves unreachable through email or phone. On his blog, Scoble publishes his cell phone number as well as his email information. One Saturday afternoon, he was playing miniature golf with his family when the phone rang.

"Hello, is this Robert Scoble?"

"Yes.”

"Hi, I'm the design producer for ABC's Extreme Home Makeover show." It turns out that they didn’t want to makeover the Scoble family home, just to see if Scoble could help land some computers and equipment for another Seattle-area family being made over. ABC had first tried to reach Microsoft’s PR Agency, but could find no one around on a Saturday. But they found Scoble who jumped into action. By Monday, the family had received donated equipment that solved their needs.

You never know who wants to get hold of you, or how they'll make over your business or career. You'll never know if you don't have at least an email address on your blog. And, as ABC's producer shows, some people just don't have time to wait for email, so phone contact info is helpful. We think the risks of publishing your contact information are exagerated. Scoble’ s has been psoted for about two years, and so far he’s received only two crank calls. But because he’s made himself accessible, he’s made friendships and enjoyed opportunities that might otherwise have been missed.

Tip #8 Tell A Story

Corporate blogging is all about telling a story. Your story.

Now, Seth Godin says that all marketers are liars. His title may be sensational, but Hell, it sells books. But, when you dig into what he's really saying it's that marketers tell compelling stories.

Let's think about the elements of a good story. Conflict is a powerful tool to use. And business writers use it a lot. But, be careful. Use it and you will increase the chances that you'll get a lot of attention.

How about love and romance? Dave Winer tells us he regularly "teases" his readers. But be prudent with sexual metaphors -- they can be overdone and they can cheapen what you're trying to say.

What about name dropping? "Did you hear about what Adam Curry said about Jones at Gnomedex?" Yeah, that works. Watch out for turning off your audience, though, since that can create jealousy, and if overdone, it can turn your readers off.

David vs. Goliath? Absolutely! If you are an underdog, point it out.

Case studies also work well. Facts, objectively presented are strong in business blogs. Balanced analysis is appreciated by mass audiences, particularly if the narrator is a trusted authority.

Tip #9 Link often.

A former boss of Scoble’s directed him not to link to sites outside his own group. This is part of a concept that emerged during the dot com era, called “stickiness.” The idea is to entice people to your site, where they would “get stuck” and never leave. One way to look at it is to pretend the site is fly paper. That tells you just how they treat their customers. It’s why we named the Google corporate blog as an example of doing it wrong. It’s sort of the opposite of how Scoble treated customers in his camera store where he worked in his youth. When they could get a better deal elsewhere, he directed customers to other stores.

Let’s take three imaginary groups:

Group A only links to group A's sites.
Group B only links to group B's sites.
Group C links to everyone including Group A & B sites, not to mention DE&F sites and so on. They become the authority by telling readers what’s good anywhere. Translation, a good blog will link to everyone, not just those who are friendly to your company. And oh by the way, Group C will rank higher than the other two groups on Google, meaning you’ll get to head off people before they even get to Group A or B.

So, link to your enemies. Link to your competitors. Link to everyone. Instead of being sticky, be linky. Be the absolute best resource you can be for your readers and they will reward you with lots of inbound links.

Tip # 10 Get Out into the Real World

If the only way people know you is through your blog you become one-dimensional. Blogging has lots of advantages. Lots of people can get to know you with a minimal amount of effort on either side. But, when push comes to shove, it's no way to build a deep relationship. There's a reason why industry conferences and trade shows are still well-attended. Nothing beats a face-to-face meeting. It is certainly better than doing it through a grid of pixels on a computer screen.

If you become a popular blogger, go out and speak when you can. Get yourself on panels. Attend meet-up events, anywhere that people can see that you are a real person.

If you can’t get out that much, then technology can help. You can start a podcast or video blog.

Both can show people more about you than just your blog. Even a photo blog is a good add-on to your blog. You can drop in everything from family and pet shots to the products you are working to support.  It’s very humanizing and all of this gives you more to talk about on your blog.

These are all subjects that other bloggers will help you learn about. The tools are simple and usually free.

Tip #11 Use your referrer log

If someone near you at a cocktail party starts talking about you, don't your ears perk up? Don't you feel impelled to get involved in the conversation? Well, there's a simple tool to listen in on what people are saying about you: your Referrer Log. The referrer log is the technology that keeps track of who is linking to your site and how much traffic those sites are sending to you. It shows you who is linking to you and how much traffic they are sending your way.

We read our referrer logs every day to see if someone new has linked to us. One trick is to read it from the bottom up. On Radio UserLand it shows you who has linked to you from the highest traffic sites to the lowest. On TypePad, it shows you the referrers from most recent to oldest. Not as nice, but TypePad has the Trackback which shows you who is linking to each post.
Most referrer logs let you click on the Web address of the site that is linking to yours. That way you can read what they are saying about you. Even better is the Bloglines Citation feature Bloglines.com/citations. It is a referer’s log, but it also lets you look at who is linking to any site on the Web. Just put a URL in and you'll get a list of people who are linking to you.

Here's one for NakedConversations: and another for The Red Couch.

This all relates to how conversations work in the blogosphere. Once you follow a link and see what someone has written about you, then post something on your own blog responding to them and perhaps linking back to them again. That demonstrates you're listening and willing to link beyond your own company turf. All these links, of course, helps you with Google and the other search engines, and that never hurts.

Comments

[steven streight aka vaspers the grate]

I disagree with your interpretation of "All Marketers Are Liars".

Doesn't Seth, whom I like and have no wish to antagonize, say that we crave stories, no matter if the stories are true, as long as they fit our established world view?

That we seek stories to believe in for the emotional value?

I don't subscribe to Seth's viewpoint in his new book.

I think people are sick and tired of stories, especially the BS stories marketers tell.

I think people want not stories to passively absorb, but rather: conversations.

Conversations are interactive.

Stories suck. Stories are non-participatory.

Stories are unilateral, one way, broadcast media mentality.

Conversations are multilateral, multidirectionsal, microcast media mentality.

Narrative no.

Conversation yes.

And that's the Blog Revolution.

[steven streight aka vaspers the grate]

P.S.

Seth's Blog is not interactive via comments.

Thus, not a true, full fledged blog. More a bulletin board only he can post content to.

Thus, he's still "telling stories" while users seek not sermons and pulpits but conversations.

They seek interaction with the actual author or organization rep, not a talking moose.

[steven streight aka vaspers the grate]

More Chapters suggested:

* guide to Blog Technologies: RSS, podcasting, audio blogging, video vlolgs, glogs, trackback, spam prevention/elimination, emailed update subs, image uploading, post page calendars, search site function, cookies for form fill-in, site registration, password-protected sites, etc.

If I keep going, and insert caustic asides, I'll have written a book, here in a comment.

Also Robert and Shel, why not throw a wild card in there?

A surprise chapter or two or appedices, some charts of blog growth, comparison charts of various blog aspects including software and hosting providers.

Checklists at the end of each chapter, an executive summary, that will obviate the need for highlighting with a marker.

Think fast usability.

Think shopper-skimmers getting hooked by lists and charts and photos.

A separate or interspersed photo section.

Screen shots of remarkable, model, or wildly successful blogs? Visually interesting and highly effective blogs?

I believe in lists.

Executives like checklists, as in actual work projects, proposals, etc.

Think high level business communications.

Styles used in urgent corporate messaging to staff and clients.

Just some random ideas after working in the garden.

[Bruce DeBoer]

I had to raise an eyebrow while reading this segment. In tip #5 Seth Godin's blog was listed as a favorite, and in tip #6 the point was made regarding comments and being conversational. There is a disconnect there somewhere since Godin (for whom I have great respect) doesn't allow comments.

I don't fault Mr. Godin for not having comments but I also don't think his blog is all that great. He makes good points in his posts but usually he's repeating points from he other publications. Not much of a blog ... more of a PR vehicle.

[steven streight aka vaspers the grate]

You're right. It's not a blog. No comments. No blogroll.

Blogs are fast, easy web content publishing platforms that function fully in the larger blogosphere via user-generated comments, trackbacks, RSS and other syndication, blogrolls, reciprocal commenting, and reblogging with remarks.

Blogs are different from conventional static web sites due to user comments, permalinks to posts as the atomic units of the blogosphere, and the self-correcting nature of the blogosphere.

But for a pulpit bloglike bulletin board, Seth's Blog is terrific.

More like a book in small doses.

Brilliant marketing ideas and extremely inspirational.

A daily read, for sure.

[james governor]

steven streight - stories suck? that seems an odd statement. Harry Potter 6 just came out, the latest in a set of stories that has reenergised the reading bug in millions of kids (and millions of adults too. can you imagine if you could get a product placement in there?

stories surely don't suck.

and non-participatory. what about summer camps doing reading round robins of the new book?

i dont think stories suck. although i take your point on seth. he was however very helpful when i inquired about the Change This manifesto program. he responded quickly and politely which is surely what you want from a conversation?

comments is usually part of my blog definition too, though. so i agree with you, but i think we ignore the power of narratives at our peril.

[Jozef Imrich]

Something is attracting the minds and heart of people to the virtual world; even we are not doing it right ;-)

Although Quantity is not everything - it is amazing how little first amendments and other little things can just grow and grow ...

via Blog Herald: Blog Count for July: 70 million blogs

[steven streight aka vaspers the grate]

Seth Godin is a gentleman and a brilliant marketing mind. I don't agree with everything he believes or says, that's all.

Books exist within a matrix of blogs and other online promotional tools, so even a successful novel is not successful solely due to its content, author, or intrinsic value to readers.

Children's books in particular are enmeshed in some rather dubious ways.

Stories, presented in isolation and passively consumed, suck. Who takes network television sitcoms seriously anymore?

Watch eyes glaze over impatiently next time you try to tell anyone any story, especially about yourself and your opinions.

They can't wait until there's a nano-pause so they can jump in with their speech.

Look at how people are seizing control of what used to be pushed at them, what used to be unilaterally broadcast at them.

Who wants to see any more "human interest" mini-narrative commercials?

Fantasy stories, even when successful, as in soap operas and dubious morality children's books, are not want people want. Not in a unilateral sense anymore.

Round robin readings remind me of autistic violent head-nodding recitations of religious texts.

Reading is not interacting. It's active with the text, but not another person. Thus, reading is not conversing. It is akin to listening, mental interaction but not exo-interaction.

Passive entertainment, spectator sports, others are hugely popular and financially successful.

But disruptive technology users have their eye not only on the current frenzies and scenes, but what the audience will want next, and being there with all the good meaty substance.

Which now means two way communication in all media. Not stories, but stories that are open to, or link to, a conversation.

Notice how even a unilateral message becomes the subject of a conversation outside its parameters if it is non-interactively imparted to the audience.

[steven streight aka vaspers the grate]

P.S.

This book is Naked Conversations, not Naked Sermons.

[Jack Nork - The Mason Technologist]

I was reading Tip #7 when I realized... DOH! I forgot to add a way to contact me on my blog. Well, it's there now. Thanks for the tip.

[steven streight aka vaspers the grate]

Web usability/blogology tip: Create and Enhance Credibility.

See book "Credibility" by Kouzes(chairman emeritus Tom Peters Company) and Posner (2003), Consumer Reports WebWatch, and Prof. B.J. Fogg of Stanford Persuasive Technology Labs, and author "Captology" book.

Cred is caused by immediate visual impression, including colors, typefont, ad banners, photo of blogger (extremely rare but humanizes, softens, adds vulnerability, candid aura, personal touch, face committed to the words).

Then it's the content as secondary cred factor, links to reputable sources, reputable blogs in blogroll, etc.

Upfront Contact and About Us/Profile/Bio has huge positive impact on credibility.

Stickiness = credibility + content + usability + value + functionality + relevance + personality.

[hugh macleod]

Seth gets away with no comments... because he's Seth. All power to him.

[hugh macleod]

Also Steven,

A blog is not a conversation. A blog is a piece of internet software.

"Conversation" is a metaphor. From a marketing perspective, I think it's unwise to treat it too literally.

[steven streight aka vaspers the grate]

A blog enables individuals to engage in conversations with other individuals or organizations.

The ease of conversation, interaction, two-way communication is really the great thing about public blogs. Intranet blogs are usually more about project collaboration, but still the conversational aspect is vital.

Conversation as meaning two way communication. Could be formal, scientific, casual, scholarly, etc.

Any blog without comments enabled is not a true blog in the best sense.

Its a Listen Phone. Like listening to a person on the other end of the phone line, like a podcast also, and you cannot say anything.

I think as Cluetrain, Net Gain, and other webonomic texts have prophesied, the New Economy is moving rapidly away from passive, non-participatory media.

Reader's Digest, about as mainstream as you can get, with conservative slant, has an article about the Me Media.

We the people have seized the New Media, and we are making Me Media, I control what I hear and see.

It's a fire spreading and burning up everything in its path.

[shel Israel]

Stve is right regarding Seth's blog. I read it because I love Seth's ability to say so much so briefly and with so much wit. Very often I wince, because Seth says something I really wish I had said first. The list is of my personal favorites. Ernie the Attorney also does not allow comments. And Dave Winer who is on Robert's list of personal favorites also does not allow comments. I can't speak for Robert, but on my part, I really wish both of them would allow comments. That being said, I must admit that some of my favorites in any category--like the Boston Red Sox in baseball are flawed.

Seth stays on my list.

Regarding the issue of story telling--our entire culture, tracking back to hairy people circling campfire in Cro Magnon caves is one of story telling. If our book succeeds, it will be because we told the stories of a great number of bloggers in ways that others found was compelling. Calling me a story-teller, from my personal perspective, is about the highest form of flattery that you can give me. And if a venue or technology allow you to call me a story-teller, then that makes it even better--or so it seems to me.

[steven streight aka vaspers the grate]

But look.

We interact with your book. It's a story that we are helping to create, not one pre-determinded and shouted at us as a homogenous "market".

Here, in this blog.

It's a story that consists largely of conversations about the story being told, a story that then incorporates fragments of the conversation into the story we're conversing about.

Thus, the book as concept, then the blog conversation and book construction simultaneously, what happens to blog after book is published?

Even if this blog is discontinued, declared a Read Only Landmark like the Cluetrain site, it will continue within Naked Conversations, the book version.

Like I said, people are in massive revolt all over the world against passive story reception, advertising stories, political stories, even personal stories.

They want stories, yes, but only interactive stories. That's my point.

Stories--in a two way communication format.

Never anymore sermon pulpit mass broadcast generic dictatorial authority-figure imposition unilateral messaging.

Multi-lateral communications are taking the world by storm, right now.

Even Readers Digest, Aug. 2005, pg. 117, knows this, calls it Me Me Media or iMedia.

We, the people now declare information to be free, free flowing, back and forth, no more pushing content at us.

We choose, edit, schedule, and consume content on our terms.

It's a new world. And blogs are one of the pioneering and most influential components.

[shel Israel]

Steve,

Using conversations to tell a story is not new and probably goes back to the cave as well. What is new is the technology. Fortunately, we get to make a book about blogging better by using blogging technology that allows us to have more conversations with more people. But at the essence of it, Naked Conversations is a story-telling book and we are pretty proud of the fact.

After this book, I plan to go on and write more books, probably without Robert. They will not necessarily be about blogging. But I will probably continue to use blogging as we have done here, because it helps to tell a better story. I expect other writers will start to do the same. We are not the first authors to publish chapters on blogs, but we probably have been more interactive than David and Dan and JD among others. For that reason, I think we are including more content from the blog than anyone previously has.

The next author to come along, may take what we have done still further. Perhaps someone will use a blog or wiki to create a truly collaborative book--sort of like the wikipedia. But that won't be me.

Naked Conversations is not a totally collaborative book. It is the work of Scoble and Israel. We have asked the blogosphere for helo and we have received tons of it. But it remains a story-teller's book. And Robert and I will continue to have favorites that other people don't like.

[steven streight aka vaspers the grate]

You both have done an excellant job.

You're better than I am at conveying principles without sounding preachy. I get really riled up about some things, but that's how I express my thoughts: combatively usually.

Christopher Locke has started a blog about his new book Mystic Bourgeoisie, an anti-New Age work.

A JotSpot wiki is being used by an author to enable readers to help him update his book for a newer version to be published soon.

Perhaps some words, an afterward, postlogue, about how this blog was used in creating the book.

The posted comments are like a running commentary on the main text you and Scoble wrote.

Some mention of controversies and conflicts, some of the problems of a book blog, and how the blogosphere kept spinning as you guys wrote, so certain blogospheric events would interfere or get assimilated.

[steven streight aka vaspers the grate]

That wiki collab effort is at:

http://codebook.jot.com/WikiHome/Book

"a book by Lawrence Lessig and YOU"

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace.

Then at Freedom to Tinker blog is a book club that is discussing the collab work at the wiki.

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/:p=834

blog > wiki > book

[steven streight aka vaspers the grate]

Oooops. I must refrain from speaking my mind so boldly.

I've just been blacklisted from posting comments at Hugh Macleod's Gaping Void blog.

[aishwarya rai]

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[nupur]

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