Friday, November 30, 2007

Ideas for blog articles

I've intentionally avoided writing about blogging, but an article from Dosh Dosh caught my attention.

I didn't start a blog with the intention of making money. I do, however, enjoy many of Maki's articles, so I read Dosh Dosh on a regular basis.

Maki recently posted Pattern Your Audience: How Editorial Calendars Can Increase Your Readership. The main idea of the article is that patterns in our blog postings can create expectations that tend to draw people into our blogs.

This article caught my attention for two reasons. First, approximately once a week I post an article with a gadget theme. I haven't received any feedback one way or another, but I enjoy hunting for quirky gadgets.

Second, I've participated in some conversations recently on the topic of whether to blog even if one doesn't have something interesting or unique to say. Perhaps this material will provide inspiration (for myself and others) for some interesting article content.

Here's a reproduction of Maki's list of suggestions with some of my own thoughts relative to this blog.
  1. Interviews - Smoothspan's Bob Warfield has some interesting interviews. It's been tempting to do something similar. I might consider something like this in the future.
  2. Feature Story - I've considered writing some longer articles. This is another one for future consideration.
  3. Columns - nah
  4. Reader Quiz/Q and A - Quiz: What's the square root of blue? Hmmm... maybe not...
  5. User Profile Highlight - I like this idea. If I do it, I might combine it with the interview idea listed earlier.
  6. Videos/Podcasts - I've contemplated a {pod,vid}cast. My current range of topics is probably not suitable for this type of activity. Feel free to cajole me into action.
  7. Free Reports - Sorry, this reminds me too much of my day job.
  8. Industry Roundups - see previous item
  9. Meme Days - this might be interesting
  10. Reviews - If you are a vendor, feel free to contact me for information on submitting products for review. ;-)
  11. Reader/User Polls - It's rude to refer to users as poles. Trust me, I've received correction on this.
  12. Website Highlight - I generally prefer to post links to interesting sites.
  13. Application Launch - Hmmm... Do architects code?
  14. Weekly Comic Strip - Probably not - my preferred artist is somewhat busy.
  15. Summary of Performance - only if we're talking about merit increases and yearly bonuses...
  16. User-Submitted Content - getcherownblogdude! :-P
  17. Monthly Contests/Deals - hmmm... perhaps this might be a way to reduce my spare parts inventory. :-)
  18. Monthly Post Digest - nah - this brings back memories of mailing lists delivered over uucp...
  19. Article Series - expect to see a few of these. I've recently started some mini-distro work that will be posted in a series of blog articles.
My pithy remarks notwithstanding, many of these are interesting ideas for creating topics for blog articles. Some readers might find some inspiration of their own.

As always, feel free to add your $0.02.

Meme for the day: everyone should have a meme for the day.

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