Silence Is The New "Thank You" or I Thought Neighbors Used To Help Each Other Out! This is a parable of sorts... At least it started out that way.
When you live or work within a community, whether it be at home amongst your neighbors or at work amongst your daytime peers, it has always been my experience that when someone needs information or help, that the community, in general, steps up.
At least that's what I seem to expect from my past experiences.
In the past, I've had total strangers step up and help me out. It's pretty heart-warming, that's for sure. So when I reached out for help with a non-refundable hotel room that I couldn't use in San Diego for Comic-Con, I wasn't holding my breath. But I guess I expected some form of acknowledgement.
But in this day and age, on the web, silence is the new "how do you do."
This last week was interesting, and to some degree, not surprising in what I encountered.
A few weeks back I found I had to have shoulder surgery and got it done. But I was cautious about the idea of attending Comic-Con in a sling. The crowd doesn't care. They plowed me over when I was on crutches, so whose to say what would happen to me in a less visible sling.
But my room was a non-refundable room and there it's about making money, so it didn't matter that medically speaking, I was unable to attend or obtain a refund. But they were pretty upfront about that when I got my room. So no surprise there.
"Sorry about your surprise surgery. No refunds. Thanks for the free money and have a nice day." So be it.
So I reached out to some of what I have considered to be peers in my blogging community asking if anyone needed a room or if they had any thoughts or suggestions? I sent this out to select group of "peers."
If I were to read between the lines of the deafening silence, I'm guessing there was a... Well, the crickets in the silence was deafening.
Not even a, sorry, don't know. Just silence. Cool... so silence is the new "No."
But there's more to add to this neighborly disappointment. I share and retweet for some of these guys on a consistent basis and not a single one of them ever says thanks. I send notes instead of comments on articles to let them know something is up or wrong with an article. Nada.
I'm guessing silence is the new "thank you." Or that some silence means "We don't care that it's wrong. It gets us traffic because no one else will bother translating that foreign language like we were supposed to before posting about this movie poster."
Silence... the all-purpose method of answering any helpful, neighborly insight.
I sent out emails to 10 folks who I know. 1 responded.
Every few months, I always develop a new revelation about the community I am clumped in with.
If you're looking to start a blog, unless you already know someone, you're going to be pretty much on your own. It's a dog eat dog world and they don't care if you get eaten up. What's the line... I don't care about the bear, as long as I'm faster than you are?
So if you're going to get started on a website, here are my basic suggestions
Understand SEO and website linking. This is one reference: http://www.seobook.com/ & http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
Hit up http://www.problogger.net/ ... that's a great starting point and focus on the basics of wrapping your mind around monetizing and other nuances.
Be careful, you don't want to follow so many people that it all becomes a fizzle of noise!
Understand how to apply social media to your game, like Twitter and Facebook.
If you want to monetize, Google Adsense is a wonderful starter spot, as is Amazon Associates. To date, they don't care about your traffic flow.
Start simple... use Google Blogger. (Wordpress site doesn't allow you to monetize) And I know some sites that are doing just fine using blogger. And blogger is getting to the point where you can customize so it doesn't look like blogger posts. (You do realize you're on a Blogger website right now, don't you?)
If things go well, get a domain and point it to Blogger.
Be emotionally prepared to see your ideas showing up on other websites. I have one website that seems to always come up with some great new ideas after I've deployed them on my website. I'm sure it's just coincidence... right? Remember, if you see your ideas being deployed by bigger websites, well, you have to keep coming up with good ideas. Heck, keep a log of it, just in case.
If things go really well after all of the above, well, by then you'll know what to do.
-
Just remember, more than likely, unless you're really good at the internet socializing game, you will have no friends out here... it's all you baby. And when you do hit your goal, then it feels pretty good.
--
When you live or work within a community, whether it be at home amongst your neighbors or at work amongst your daytime peers, it has always been my experience that when someone needs information or help, that the community, in general, steps up.
At least that's what I seem to expect from my past experiences.
In the past, I've had total strangers step up and help me out. It's pretty heart-warming, that's for sure. So when I reached out for help with a non-refundable hotel room that I couldn't use in San Diego for Comic-Con, I wasn't holding my breath. But I guess I expected some form of acknowledgement.
But in this day and age, on the web, silence is the new "how do you do."
This last week was interesting, and to some degree, not surprising in what I encountered.
A few weeks back I found I had to have shoulder surgery and got it done. But I was cautious about the idea of attending Comic-Con in a sling. The crowd doesn't care. They plowed me over when I was on crutches, so whose to say what would happen to me in a less visible sling.
But my room was a non-refundable room and there it's about making money, so it didn't matter that medically speaking, I was unable to attend or obtain a refund. But they were pretty upfront about that when I got my room. So no surprise there.
"Sorry about your surprise surgery. No refunds. Thanks for the free money and have a nice day." So be it.
So I reached out to some of what I have considered to be peers in my blogging community asking if anyone needed a room or if they had any thoughts or suggestions? I sent this out to select group of "peers."
If I were to read between the lines of the deafening silence, I'm guessing there was a... Well, the crickets in the silence was deafening.
Not even a, sorry, don't know. Just silence. Cool... so silence is the new "No."
But there's more to add to this neighborly disappointment. I share and retweet for some of these guys on a consistent basis and not a single one of them ever says thanks. I send notes instead of comments on articles to let them know something is up or wrong with an article. Nada.
I'm guessing silence is the new "thank you." Or that some silence means "We don't care that it's wrong. It gets us traffic because no one else will bother translating that foreign language like we were supposed to before posting about this movie poster."
Silence... the all-purpose method of answering any helpful, neighborly insight.
I sent out emails to 10 folks who I know. 1 responded.
Every few months, I always develop a new revelation about the community I am clumped in with.
If you're looking to start a blog, unless you already know someone, you're going to be pretty much on your own. It's a dog eat dog world and they don't care if you get eaten up. What's the line... I don't care about the bear, as long as I'm faster than you are?
So if you're going to get started on a website, here are my basic suggestions
Understand SEO and website linking. This is one reference: http://www.seobook.com/ & http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
Hit up http://www.problogger.net/ ... that's a great starting point and focus on the basics of wrapping your mind around monetizing and other nuances.
Be careful, you don't want to follow so many people that it all becomes a fizzle of noise!
Understand how to apply social media to your game, like Twitter and Facebook.
If you want to monetize, Google Adsense is a wonderful starter spot, as is Amazon Associates. To date, they don't care about your traffic flow.
Start simple... use Google Blogger. (Wordpress site doesn't allow you to monetize) And I know some sites that are doing just fine using blogger. And blogger is getting to the point where you can customize so it doesn't look like blogger posts. (You do realize you're on a Blogger website right now, don't you?)
If things go well, get a domain and point it to Blogger.
Be emotionally prepared to see your ideas showing up on other websites. I have one website that seems to always come up with some great new ideas after I've deployed them on my website. I'm sure it's just coincidence... right? Remember, if you see your ideas being deployed by bigger websites, well, you have to keep coming up with good ideas. Heck, keep a log of it, just in case.
If things go really well after all of the above, well, by then you'll know what to do.
-
Just remember, more than likely, unless you're really good at the internet socializing game, you will have no friends out here... it's all you baby. And when you do hit your goal, then it feels pretty good.
--
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