• It is currently mid-February. It might be a good idea to wait until December is a bit closer before making our “best of” lists.
• By various counts, there are at least 200 million blogs in the world. Either Time spent an incredible amount of time and effort on this, or…well, they didn’t. The fact that most of their choices can be found on Technorati’s list of the most popular blogs would suggest the latter.
• Though a list of 25 items could easily fit on one page, Time puts each and very entry on a separate page. This is designed to get 25 clicks and 25 page-views from every reader, inflating Time’s perceived popularity. It’s actually pretty smart, but also rather annoying to the reader.
• This is basically their version of linkbait – the method used by bloggers to get others to link to their posts (as I did above), increasing their rankings in Google. Lists are the most common form of this technique – anytime you see a blog post starting with a number (“25 best ____”, 5 Ways To ____”, “10 New ____”), you’re looking at linkbait. Including when I do it.
• Time’s post also incorporates two other well-known forms of linkbait: the “useful” post, and the “controversial” post. Casual readers will be attracted to it as a useful list, tech-savvy types will be complaining all day about it on their blogs – as I am doing now. See how it works?

As a kicker, in case they didn’t generate enough controversy, there’s a list of the 5 Most Overrated Blogs, sure to get a few more people ticked off, and generate five more page-views per reader.

Oddly enough, Gawker.com went from last year’s “best” to this year’s “most overrated”. Apparently in 2008 “Gawker’s relentlessly critical, headache-inducing cynicism” was a good thing, but in 2009 “the economic downturn and the near-collapse of Wall Street has made Gawker’s snarky worldview seem not only cruel but pointless.”

Oh, Time. The zeitgeist is getting sore from you having your finger on it.

As a service to you the reader, and because my annoyance knows no bounds, I present here Time’s lists on one page. The only value Time adds for your clicks is a screenshot of each, and a short paragraph seemingly written by someone on the way to work.

Time’s 25 Best Blogs 2009:

1. Talking Points Memo
2. The Huffington Post (down from #1 last year. Perhaps it was that little plagiarism problem.)
3. Lifehacker
4. Metafilter
5. The Daily Dish
6. Freakonomics
7. BoingBoing
8. Got2BeGreen
9. Zen Habits
10. The Conscience of a Liberal: Paul Krugman
11. Crooks and Liars
12. Generación Y
13. Mashable
14. Slashfood (“Slashfood is food for thought”…ugh. Didn’t they teach you about lazy writing in journalism school?)
15. Official Google Blog
16. synthesis (the choices are getting a bit better – this is a pretty thoughtful, interesting one)
17. bleat (a “pop culture ephemera” blog – not bad, but much like 100,000 others)
18. /Film
    
19. Seth Godin’s Blog (bleh. Self-important aphorisms daily from a self-proclaimed web guru, followed by slobbering fanboy comments. No thanks.)
    
20. Deadspin: Sports News
    
21. Dooce (riding out her micro-fame. I don’t care about your OB-GYN visit, really.)
    
22. Confessions of a Pioneer Woman (they had blogs on the frontier?)
    
23. Said the Gramophone (how did they choose one mp3 blog?)
24. Detention Slip (something about education apparently)
25. Bad Astronomy

Hey Time, what was your mission again?

I can report to you today: the question has been definitively answered.

This morning I awoke to an email from my friend Paul, which read in part:

They had a piece on the news last night about Twitter, and having Twitter parties and I was mortified. 

 

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=6600808&rss=rss-cs-wls-video-6600808

 

Not to sound like a wet blanket but JC, give me a FN break. 

[Editor's note: I advise you to watch that video on an empty stomach.]

I wrote back:

I think this is part of the normal cycle of anything new becoming popular: the local news story about ______ parties. 

Probably because old people vaguely remember having parties themed around the fads of their day, like ”hula-hoop parties”. This gives them a frame to understand new things. 

The report follows the classic pattern: the lead anchor takes a dismissive tone, the younger reporter is in the know, and (go figure!) the wacky weatherman’s been tweeting for months!

The next phase - techie backlash - has already begun in some quarters, with blog posts complaining about Twitter being misused by all the new people, and how much better it was in the old days of…what, 2007? 

If history is any guide, I would expect this to be followed by a proliferation of spam, more system outages, more attempts at Twitter-killing apps, a Google tweet search, Twitter SEO and full-time Twitter experts, a generally agreed-upon “authority” ranking (which will then be gamed by scammers with paid fake followers), news stories about the dangers of predators on Twitter, a “get rich quick with Twitter” late-night infomercial, and an annual Twitter convention with an embarrassingly stupid name.

And in the end, especially here in the U.S., we will use Twitter not despite its 140 character limit, but because of it. We will communicate in 140-character segments because that is all we have to give.

Or maybe I’m wrong, and a new art form will develop. I hope so.

But please, keep your lunch plans to yourself.

What I did:

Concentrate on content. I’m writing about things that interest me, and hopefully others, not just trying to fill space. If you want to write just to get popular and make money…well, good luck. If you want to be John Chow, go for it.

Post consistently. I’m trying to stick to 5 days a day, Monday through Friday. That may become impossible, but I’ll try.

Utilize every free service available. Google Analytics is pretty much mandatory (though it could use an averaging function). Submitting to Digg, Technorati, StumbleUpon – all free. StumbleUpon has given me half of my traffic the last few days.

Establish communication with like-minded bloggers. Social Change SEO is one I like a lot, as well as a few friends I’ve added to my links. I’m finding more all the time. Keep in mind, this is not a business transaction. I’d love a PR8 or PR9 linkback, but only from a site that makes sense, and certainly not by paying some scammer. 

Write link-bait. I backed into this technique when I wrote about my hatred for Twitter in my second post. I’ll be honest: at the time I was totally naive that people wrote controversial posts strictly to gain traffic. But when I saw people streaming in, I wrote a follow-up on more reasons Twitter sucks. Hey, I ain’t stupid.

Link to high-traffic blogs, when relevant. For example, the first line in my 2009 predictions post. Maybe I overdid it a little, but all of those sites received a ping that I linked to them, and some had an auto-trackback posted in their comments, which could lead a few people here. But remember, treat it like an nude scene: only do it if it’s integral to the plot.

Comment on related posts elsewhere. Let others know that you’ve posted your take on a subject, but again, only if you can add something to the conversation. Don’t be a salesperson. Apply the normal rules of human engagement.

Mention this blog on my social networks. Again, avoid salesmanship if you don’t want to be treated like one. These sites are there to let people know what you’re doing, and your blog is one of the things you’re doing.

Tweak the meta-tags. At the very least, make sure you have an accurate description. This is something I slacked on until just yesterday.

What I didn’t do:

Spam other blogs with unrelated comments.

Participate in in dicey linking schemes.

Write anything I couldn’t live with.

Connect with anyone I wouldn’t have in real life.

What I didn’t do but should have:

Ask for links. ”You don’t ask, you don’t get”. I need to get better at this. I really prefer things happen organically, but I also hate waiting. Slight conflict there.

Write a bunch of posts before launching, in order to “find my voice” first. I guess there’s nothing wrong with growing up in public, but this blog has just started to find itself in the last few days. It also would make regular posting easier if I had an archive I could pull one out of when I needed to.

Make it pay for itself. Just yesterday I reluctantly placed an ad in the sidebar, which I can’t even see myself due to ad-blocking software. Hopefully you can. I can’t ask you to click on it, as that’s against Google’s policy. But I think I can mention that I make money if you do.

Clearly, I’m still struggling with how/whether I want to make money on this. If just one of you signs up with my web host, I’ll break even. I recommend it, isn’t that good enough?

No? OK then, scroll down on the sign-up page and enter coupon code “GOTAPEX-ROX-A-LOT” for 3 months free, free domain registration, and only $6.95 a month. What else do you want?

What did I say about avoiding salesmanship?

2009 is here, and the web is full of predictions for the year (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

However, many of these “leading thinkers” are frustratingly vague in their prognostications. “Facebook will continue to be popular” and “Twitter goes mainstream” do not qualify as bold predictions.

Unlike these “thought leaders”, I am willing to go out on a limb for you the reader, and come back with real specifics. Here then are the Agitationist’s predictions for the web world in 2009:

JANUARY

“Identity aggregation” is the prevailing theme of 2009. This gains momentum throughout January, as Facebook acquires OpenID, FriendConnect and FriendFeed, and folds them into Facebook Connect, which will now be used to log on to all social networks, bank accounts, and porn sites.

FEBRUARY

CPT (cost-per-tweet) becomes a primary advertising metric. Google buys Twitter for a record sum; Twitter admits this was its long-awaited “monetization plan“.

In February, someone claims to be a “Pro Twitterer“; there is no way to refute the claim.

MARCH

Microsoft products worldwide cease to function at 12:00am on March 1st 2009, as they fail to adjust to the non-leap year. A fix (code-named “Toaster”) is be scheduled to be released by July, but fails to materialize.

APRIL

After a fierce battle with Yahoo, Google acquires Facebook, and mashes up Facebook Connect with its own ID service OpenSocial (ironically using Yahoo Pipes). Google shuts down Orkut; no one is affected.

The triumphant Google launches a new social platform, connecting all your tweets, text messages, emails, bookmarks, contacts, comments, feeds, photos, calendars, status updates, and Wikipedia entries into one SocialID™.

Google then uses a proprietary algorithm to assign you a PeopleRank™, which determines your online authority, social status, earning potential and suitability for employment.

GFriends™ on your TrustList™ are able to follow your LifeFeed™ and GoogleMap™ your real-world location (or “meat-spot“), thanks to your SocialID™-enabled mobile device.

MAY

Controversy ensues when a whistle-blower claims the US government has covertly installed its own server room in the Googleplex to monitor private citizens’ LifeFeeds™. However, this is widely seen as a necessary protection against terrorism, and a class-action lawsuit is quickly dismissed.

Oversharing becomes expected social behavior, and the desire for privacy is seen as petty and prudish. Within three years, PeopleRank™ is planned to include fingerprints, SAT scores, credit reports, and criminal records.

“Identity theft” is replaced by the more serious crime of “Aggregated Identity Theft“, and companies compete to offer PeopleRank™ monitoring services for a monthly fee.

JUNE

A new phone is released that is so cool, it makes you think your phone sucks. You purchase this phone, but someone you know then gets a newer, cooler phone.

In late June, Oprah does a show on getting negative people out of your LifeFeed™.

JULY

With online identities consolidating rapidly, screen-name squatting becomes the domain-name squatting of 2009. Shaquille O’Neal buys the right to tweet under his own name for an undisclosed sum. After receiving a cease-and-desist letter, eBay shuts down an auction for the screen name “Beyoncé”. Diff’rent Strokes star Gary Coleman attempts to auction off his own name; the reserve price is not met.

AUGUST

Google is contracted to provide airport screening services for the TSA. President Obama defends this move as part of his “Google for Government” initiative.

However, there is a dark spot for Google in August, when it discovers that AdSense is nothing more than a massive pay-per-link scheme. Google penalizes itself by reducing its own PageRank from 10 to 0.

SEPTEMBER

Throughout the summer there has been a growing backlash against Google’s hegemony, and rebellious users begin moving to Yahoo.

However, there is a scandal in September, as a Yahoo employee leaves a briefcase containing Yahoo’s exclamation point in an airport lounge. Yahoo rapidly loses consumer trust and market share, and its stock price dives under $2.00. Microsoft succeeds in a hostile takeover, breaks up Yahoo and sells it for parts.

The exclamation point is found, and donated to the new “Web 1.0 Museum”, which opens in September on the campus of Stanford University, in a building shaped like a giant bubble.

OCTOBER

YouTube covers 75% of its video frame with advertising, adds pop-up balloons containing sponsored messages, and randomly replaces video soundtracks with jingles for the new YouTube-brand energy drink. Somehow, competitors still fail to gain significant market share.

NOVEMBER

NewsCorp buys the “Girls Gone Wild” franchise and folds it into MySpace, completing the site’s transition into the teen soft-porn market. Market share plummets, but profits skyrocket.

There is controversy when it is revealed that MySpace’s “Tom” has been dead for several years, and his profile is being operated by a low-paid employee in Bangalore. “Tom” is de-friended by 2.5 million people in one day, a Guinness world record in this newly-created category.

DECEMBER

Predictions for the year are reviewed, and found to be either eerily accurate or totally off-base.

–FIN–

In a previous post titles “15 Reasons Twitter Must Die“, I accused Twitter users of oversharing the petty, mundane details of their sad, pointless lives. 

Incensed Twitterers jumped to its defense. Twitter was a useful tool, they said, and wasn’t just reducing conversation to idle noise. It could be used for sharing ideas, networking, and gauging the zeitgeist.

Thinking I might have been a bit hard on the Twittersphere, I thought I’d revisit the issue. Using the much-celebrated (though hardly revolutionary) search technology recently added to Twitter, I set out to see just how illuminating the average Tweet was.

The idea that Twitter seemed to frequently be a report on what the user was having for lunch seemed to particularly gall the Twitterers who wrote in. So let’s see how many tweets in the last 24 hours concerned the topic of “lunch”.

Off we go.

Well it appears we’ve found the limit of Twitter search: 1500 results. And in the time it took to write that sentence, 16 more results were added.

Keep in mind that as I write this, it is 8:00 am Central Time, which means that unless Greenland is taking an early break, it is not lunch hour in any populated area on Earth. 

Just a few sample results:

technobohemia: Playing WOW, but craving Chinese food…when will it be lunchtime?

half a minute ago

SamShepherd: went to M&S to get lunch and came back with sushi. I’ve never eaten sushi. don’t know what inspired that

1 minute ago

dihsjp: waiting for lunch

2 minutes ago

qwghlm: Right, feeling vaguely progressive and have tidied the living room. Now for lunch

2 minutes ago

Rebecca_Agra: lunch…

4 minutes ago

einerlei: back to library…finally, after having a nice lunch with a friend

4 minutes ago

Wehtam: Back home in sunny Manchester. Off to cash checks after lunch.

4 minutes ago

mauricio_kimura: Hungry and ready to go for lunch !!!

5 minutes ago

timwasted: having some lunch and watching bad tv – but at least its warm inside

6 minutes ago

Jedbeck: 2 hours til lunch with my girls

6 minutes ago

Knicki: is going to skin some potatos for lunch.

8 minutes ago

eburgosgarcia: back from lunch & hairdresser..

9 minutes ago

The disturbing tendency here is toward externalizing what should remain, in a reasonably civilized society, the inner monologue. This is partly the medium’s fault for restricting itself to 140 characters. Even Oscar Wilde would have a hard time coming up with 20 pithy quips a day under those conditions.

Now, to make this experiment somewhat scientific, we need a control phrase.  If “lunch” brings up a list of 1500 mundane tweets that no one needs to see, what word or phrase will reveal the intelligent, illuminating, useful tweets I keep hearing about?

This where you come in. Please make your suggestions in the comments, and if I don’t hear from you, have a great lunch.

“What are you doing?”

That’s the question Twitter asks. And it requests your answer in a 140-character text box.

Stay connected with your friends! Be part of a global community! Join the conversation!

No thanks.

Sorry, I know it’s last year’s news, but Twitter sucks. Here is a starter list of reasons why. Please feel free to add your own.

1. “What we’re doing” is usually petty, mundane and boring. No one cares what you have for lunch, even if you are Shaquille O’Neal. You are just not as important as you think you are. I say this with love.
2. Random replies and disjointed conversations that make no sense to anyone else, except when arranged in a thread by a plug-in, add-on or widget. It’s like instant messaging without features!
3. The inevitable plug-ins, add-ons and widgets to make Twitter useful. If it’s not useful in the first place, why use it?
4. If you can express it in 140 characters, it probably took less time to actually do it live than to “tweet” it. Whatever you said you were doing, you just stopped to tweet about it.
5. The word “tweet“.
6. Text messaging achieves the same purpose without sending your micro-details to everyone. Anywhere else that’s called “spamming”. Yes, I know they opted in as your “followers“, but they’ll be opting back out soon enough.
7. “Following” someone is not healthy, whether you’re a stalker, a cult member or a Twitter user.
8. Transparency is not always good. Public toilets should not have glass walls. The word of the year for 2008: “oversharing“.
9. The word of 2009: “micro-fame“. You heard it here first. It’s somewhere below reality show fame, and just above getting your mug shot on the Smoking Gun. I also predict this will lead to the unfortunate word of 2010: “micro-lame”.
10. Twitter is cutesy and bubbly and looks like a toy. Because it is a toy.
11. “But the San Diego fires/San Francisco mudslides/(insert big news) story was broken on Twitter!” Fine, but shouldn’t those people have called 911 and then maybe tried to help, instead of attempting to gain some micro-fame (see?) by “breaking” a story we all would have heard about 5 minutes later?
12. The inevitable “I was fired because I Twittered about my employer” lawsuit and “Twitter addiction” news stories.
13. The constant conversation about ”how to monetize Twitter“, and the inevitable $19.95 e-book to explain how it can make you rich with little or no effort.
14. The more popular it gets, the worse it gets. I’m no elitist (well, maybe), but have you looked at MySpace lately? QED.
15. Twitter is just another tool to replace the voices in your head, ignore your soul-crushing job, and numb you to the yawning chasm of emptiness that is your life.

And did I mention the word “tweet“?