It may not seem like it from that description, but times were different then. Blogging was different. And let me tell you if you weren’t a part of this world back in the day: it was FUN! If you were a part of this, you probably remember. Nobody was really making any serious money out of it, except for a few people here and there, because blogging was still very new and we didn’t even know it could be profitable. Most people were just enjoying it, they were in for the ride (not the destination), sharing their life, their career, their passions. All in one single blog, because niche blogs were the exception, not the rule. The whole thing had a more personal undertone, even the ones with no personal content. It felt more authentic. Granted, things were simpler and some of the wonderful tools and technologies we enjoy today were still in the making. But that simplicity with a lot of authenticity certainly had its charm.

Fast forward to the present and I feel like my grandmother talking about how life was simpler and enjoyable when she was growing up and how fun it was to climb trees. But the truth is, I’m talking about a reality from only 7 years ago. And then you ask: why so nostalgic? I’ll tell you:

Blogging today seems to be all about making money. Aren’t you growing sick and tired of this blabber? The word is out and has been for a while: blogging can allow you to quit the job you hate and make a living from writing in your PJs from the comfort of your home at 2 o’clock in the morning. Who wants a ticket? Apparently, lots of people.

There’s nothing wrong with that and, quite frankly, I’m all for it. Don’t get me wrong, I think making money from blogging is wonderful. I do, I’ve made some pretty decent income over the years myself and plan on staying on that track. That being said, the problem I have with it is that I see an overwhelming number of people losing authenticity in the process. They aren’t having fun. They obsess way too much over SEO practices, page rank, they read everything they can get their hands on about how to be a better blogger or how to make money from your blog and hey – there’s no shortage of information out there, in fact, this very information has proven to be quite profitable for some people.

Now listen, this is all wrong… This is backwards. Let me tell you who is really making money from blogging: those who are out there TRULY expressing their passion. Financial results come from sharing value. If you aren’t focusing on sharing value because you’re too busy worrying about the right keywords to use in the title of the article you just wrote based on step-by-step instructions on how to blog if you want to make a profit, guess what? You’re wasting your time! Do you know how many people are following the same tutorials and doing the exact same thing? There are so many of you out there that, quite frankly, it’s getting pretty old. It’s ok to learn SEO and best practices, to read about how to be a better blogger and learn from other people’s experiences, to learn about possible blog income options, all of that has its place. But if you’re letting that get in the way of your authentic self-expression, I guarantee you’re on the wrong track.

You have probably read somewhere else before that profitable blogging requires you to be authentic, so I’m not really breaking the news here, right? But see, what you need to realize is, if the only reason why you’re trying to be authentic is because you read somewhere that this is part of the sure-fire formula, again, that’s backwards. There’s a difference between being truly authentic and trying to appear as such or fake it as a means to an end. And sooner or later, your readers will be able to tell the difference.

Let me share with you a recent example to illustrate this: a few months ago I started reading a blog from someone who seemed to have a very clear and honest message. He seemed passionate, wrote good articles, posted some nice videos and so on and so forth. It should have been my first clue when I started reading too many articles on this blog about how sharing your passion is important (while no passion of his own was really being shared, now that I look at it in retrospect) and how by sharing his passion he was making a profit. But I didn’t see it coming: a few months (and many subscribers) down the road, I get an email in the classic sales pitch format: “Join me in this conference call where I’m going to share with you how you can turn your passion into profit. This will change your life. It’s very rare for me to do this. Here’s an introduction video. Blah… Blah…. Blaaahhhhh…”. I was so surprised by this (considering I had a completely different image of what he was trying to do based on what I had been reading on his blog and even emails we had exchanged), I wrote back asking if this was going to be one of those conference calls where you’re invited to buy a program in the end. I said “it’s ok if it is, I just want to know in advance”. You probably guessed it, I didn’t get a reply.

Fail!! Someone pretending to be passionate and authentic (about… what exactly?) in order to sell you tips on how to be passionate and authentic borders the ridiculous. First of all, if you’re going to sell something, that’s fine (it really is!), but don’t be obscure about it. Not if you want to be a successful blogger, because that also requires transparency and honesty. Second, once questioned about it, there’s your very (unlikely) second chance to come clean, so by all means, do it. Don’t ignore the question. Would you keep a connection (personal OR professional) with someone who isn’t being honest and transparent with you? Neither did I. Unfollow. Next?

That’s why I was so happy to hear Lorelle talk about authenticity and finding your voice at the WordCamp Netherlands. We REALLY need more of that in today’s blogosphere – like we had in the good old days. Lorelle, by the way, is a very good example of someone sharing their passion and being successful at it. If you pay attention, you’ll notice who’s truly being authentic and who’s simply trying too hard. I respect people like Darren Rowse, for instance, who, yes, shows you how to be a better blogger but is actually passionate about it – and that’s how his contribution ends up being so important and relevant, and why that translates into financial success. Darren started blogging early and never lost that authenticity. Sure, he makes really good money, but you can see he’s still enjoying the ride itself. This is the natural result, not the cause. And you can still sense that personal underlying tone at Problogger.net and you don’t even have to take my word for it, just go read this article and draw your own conclusions. Same goes for Steve Pavlina and many other successful bloggers – I don’t need to name them all, you probably know them already because you’re one of the people getting the REAL value they’re sharing.

And since I’m on it, let me add another piece of annoyance to the mix: I feel like screaming every time I visit a Twitter profile and it says “social media specialist”. We all know a few people who are, indeed, social media specialists, but seriously… Is everyone a social media specialist now? How about “hype specialist”? Is this really the only thing we need to be talking about? Can you say “broken record”? Yes, I know it’s big and I love it too. But it’s getting so repetitive because this seems to be the new yellow brick road everyone wants to be on, it’s making me feel peeved about the term! If you aren’t Dorothy, this just makes you look like you’re trying too hard to be in the wrong movie.

I miss the days when making money from blogging wasn’t so much of a hype because, that being out of the way, it felt like we were connecting with people – and not their agendas. Whether that ends up being for personal or professional reasons, it really doesn’t matter – I just miss the more laid back and authentic tone the blogosphere had 7 years ago as opposed to how obsessive so many people are nowadays with making a living from blogging. I feel like we are missing this balance. Profit and authenticity can co-exist, we don’t need to be in the run for the pot of gold at the expense of losing ourselves and our true voices in the process. In fact, in my experience, these things tend to work very well when they come together.

Again, don’t get me wrong: I love many of the aspects of this new blogging reality we have today, including the true connections we still make with other fellow bloggers – and I hope more and more people can benefit from the financial possibilities it brings us, it’s all good. But I’m still in it for the ride. And for the true connections. For the unexpected doors it opens, financial and otherwise. For the fun of it. For expression. For all of it. And I wish more people were in it with a similar approach and mindset.

And with this, I officially come back to blogging after a long hiatus for personal reasons. But apart from the personal issues that kept me away from blogging in the past few months, something else motivated me to write all this: I’ve personally made the mistake of trying to find my place in this hyped money making blogosphere, thinking what I was doing before no longer had a place in this new scenario (when in reality, it was working just fine). But not very surprisingly, that made me lose my voice and authenticity – along with part of the pretty decent income I was making. It’s not so much that I started doing things differently: the truth is, the more I worried about doing what, in theory, I was “supposed” to be doing based on where the blogosphere seemed to be going towards in order to keep my income flowing, the less motivated I felt to write. I lost focus on what I was already instinctively doing right just by being myself. So I took a step back to think this over and this article was the result of this process. Income or no income from blogging, I’ll be the change I want to see in the blogging world (to reference Ghandi’s words). I think adapting is important, but you can’t lose yourself in the process. I hope this inspires you to do the same.

I researched most of the mainstream brands. Both my previous laptops had been HPs and I had never had any problems with them, but I wanted to try a different brand this time. Besides, I didn’t find an HP matching my requirements either. Style wise, I was very inclined to buying a Sony Vaio, but the cost-benefit of the configuration I needed wasn’t exactly good.

The Dell XPS M1530 matched pretty much all of my requirements, so I went ahead and made my first Dell purchase.

Buying through Dell.com:

Simple, intuitive, straightforward. Great customer support – except for a sales person trying to force the purchase through the phone when I called to ask a simple question (and this had been explained to her). The online support chat, however, was flawless: friendly, helpful and not pushy.

• Note: 9/10, the pushy sales person got on my nerves!

Delivery:

Also flawless. I placed a customized order on February 4th (in the evening), the laptop was at my door on February 10th (in the morning). So it took roughly 5 days between ordering, customized production, shipping and delivery. And that was through ground shipping – that I got for free, by the way.

• Note: 10/10

Expectations vs. reality, first impressions:

Some things matched my expectations, others did not. Here are my overall impressions at this point – keep in mind I’ve only been using the laptop for 3 days:

Performance: exactly as I expected it to be. My XPS came with:

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9300 (2.5GHz/800Mhz FSB, 6MB Cache)
• 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
• 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
• 500GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
• Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-bit

I have yet to test video and image processing capabilities, but so far the XPS has been handling multitasking beautifully. I haven’t pushed it to really heavy multitasking yet, but so far so good. Very fast.

Weight: even though the laptop weight is stated in the specs when you buy it, I expected the XPS to be lighter than it actually is. My fault, not Dell’s: I didn’t take the time to convert pounds into kilograms.

Keyboard: at first I didn’t quite like the look and feel of the keyboard. It has metal keys, spaced wider than what I was used to. I usually prefer really smooth, more short spaced, flat thin plastic keys (like the Sony Vaios have). After a few days now, though, I got used to it and I’m actually quite enjoying it.

Integrated Webcam and Mic: it came with a 2MP integrated webcam (+ Dell webcam software) and mic. They both work very well, although the image gets very grainy at night, under artificial light.

Fingerprint reader: you must first go through the setup process, but it’s a one time thing – unless you want to make changes or add users. It takes a little bit of practice to get it right, but I’m finding the fingerprint reader very useful – not to mention it adds an extra security layer depending on how you choose to use it.

Touch sensitive media controls: work wonderfully and look beautiful.

Touchpad: works smooth and perfectly.

Style/Look and feel: the XPS is very stylish and beautiful, although I wouldn’t mind a more feminine touch. The available color options were Tuxedo Black, Midnight Blue and Flamingo Pink. I ordered the Midnight Blue – I wouldn’t mind a more feminine touch, but the pink was too inappropriate for my professional needs.

They also offer a (Product) Red XPS, but apparently it’s a different line – and despite their claim that it costs the same, a simulation using the same specs I had for the Midnight Blue resulted in a more expensive (Product) Red laptop when I tried it. This  was a little disappointing, because the red would have been perfect for me. But I didn’t see a point in spending more money on a color. Especially when there are other ways to skin it and make it unique.

Extras: I had seen some video reviews from people who had bought this laptop and, maybe coincidentally, all of them received a free simple laptop case with it. I guess I assumed they came with all XPS orders, but I didn’t get one, so this was a little disappointing too. Again, probably my fault and not Dell’s.

Software: I was very happy to see that this laptop didn’t come bloated with annoying and unnecessary ads and programs (something that annoyed me in the HPs I bought in the past). I’m also enjoying the few Dell proprietary software.

Other issues: the bottom of the laptop came with a “mis-screwed” part. All the screws were there, but the “lid” was sticking out as if it didn’t fit. This was easily solved by unscrewing and re-screwing the lid, but I was surprised that this got through their quality control without being noticed and/or fixed.

Screen resolution: I ordered a high resolution glossy widescreen LCD. Under 1440×900 resolution, the image is perfect. Trying to change the display settings to 1280×800 causes the screen to get blurry and I haven’t yet figured out why or how to solve this. If anyone can help me on this one, please leave a comment.

Obviously, I haven’t had enough time at this point to fully explore all the features and capabilities of the XPS M1530 yet. Overall I’m pretty happy with this laptop so far, except for the minor issues mentioned in this review.

• Note: 9/10.

Now a new journey begins: finding the right “mini”. I’m very inclined to buying an EeePC. Thoughts?

Anyway… With all the options available on the market I am a little bit confused. On top of that, hardware isn’t exactly my forte. (I already posted about this on Twitter, but the 140 char. limit doesn’t allow for all details I needed to share, hence this extended post.)

The obvious questions people are asking me are: what is your laptop usage profile/what will you be using the laptop for? Here’s the answer:

• This laptop will be my main computer, so a decent hard drive is probably a good idea.
• I will use it both for personal and professional activities.
• I need to have several programs running at once, so speed and performance are a priority.
• Mobility is relatively important. I am planning on buying a mini-notebook in the near future for traveling and going to events (in which case I wouldn’t take the main laptop with me) – however, I would still like to have the choice to carry my laptop with me should circumstances require, so its size and weight can’t be an impediment (the Sony Vaios seem good candidates in this department). 14-15 inch widescreens seem ideal to me.
• I often need to work with graphics/images (Photoshop)/videos (editing)/sound (mixing, recording and playback).
• This will be a PC, not a Mac.

I think this gives you an idea of what kind of computer I’m looking for. All my previous laptops have been HPs and I never had any problems with them, but I am open to looking into other brands. I’m somewhat inclined to buying a Sony Vaio, but nothing is set in stone.

My budget for this purchase is around US$ 1,000.00 (with some flexibility). The question is: what is the best computer I can buy, given my usage profile and my budget?

I am particularly looking for advice concerning processors/memory and what to avoid – older technology, etc. Advice on your experience with brands is also welcome.

Thank you in advance if you can share your expertise somehow in the comments. I really appreciate it.

In the past few months I have been really busy in both my personal and my professional life. Work related stuff included going to several web related events, some of which make sense only for those of you who are familiar with the Brazilian blogosphere. Back in May, though, I went to the Googleplex in São Paulo to attend the Google for Bloggers event, the first of its kind ever promoted by Google in Brazil. Here are some photos (more here):

(And here is the link to my article about the event for those of you who speak Portuguese.)

To put it shortly, this was a very positive first official contact between Google executives and brazilian bloggers. They all showed genuine interest in hearing what we had to say and expressed interest in promoting this type of event on a regular basis. All I can say is that I can’t wait for the next one.

While I’m on the subject, I’m attending the Google Search Masters on September 24th. I’m looking forward to meeting some of the people who will be speaking there, including Adam Lasnik, Pedro Dias, among others. If you’re attending too, make sure to leave a comment and I’ll see you there.

That’s all for now, folks. I will be posting more regularly from now on, though.

Tags: events, google, bloggers, blogosphere, searchmasters, google4bloggers

Seriously now… If their servers are prepared (and I’m assuming they took care of that in advance), does it really change people’s experience on Flickr all that much to have videos on other people’s photo streams? Those who don’t want to watch videos can simply skip them, nobody’s forced to click on videos. They don’t even look all that different in photo streams, except for the “play” button over the still image.

Maybe I’m missing something, so those of you who are so passionately protesting against it, enlighten me: why is it so bad? Do you really think that if Flickr was trying to compete with YouTube there would be a 90 seconds limit to videos?

Mmm… I see… Flickr is no longer “pure”… It’s now tainted and infected with (God forbid!) evil videos!!!

I like to hear other people’s opinions before posting something like this, so I went ahead and read all different reasons I could find that people are giving to support “why videos shouldn’t be allowed on Flickr”. None of them convinced me.

“If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said, ‘a faster horse’”. – Henry Ford

The above quote is not meant to imply that videos are better than photos in any way. It does imply, however, that sometimes people are so used to the status quo that they can’t grasp the possibilities that come with change. To stay with the same analogy, people could still ride horses (post photos), while at the same time having the chance to drive cars (post videos) if so they chose. They both take you to your destination (self expression), it’s just a matter of how you want to get there.

Ok, I know the analogy isn’t perfect, but what I’m trying to say is that I could understand if people were protesting against something that would affect their ability to use Flickr for the purpose it was originally created for. But having videos on the website doesn’t change their ability to post and view photos and it certainly doesn’t force anyone to watch what they don’t want to watch. It simply allows users who also enjoy videos to have the opportunity to express themselves both ways, on a website they already enjoy for different reasons.

I like how this user phrased it: “they are only videos if you press play”.

And this other image that reads: “If you don’t like video on Flickr, then do the smart thing: don’t watch! Keep your hands off my content, off my right to choose”.

Besides, so what if Flickr was created with a purpose in mind and is changing over time? Nothing is set in stone, in fact, if you think that change is bad, you really shouldn’t be on the internet. This is one of the industries in which change happens more quickly and more often.

Also, if you think that Flickr is a photo sharing website, think again. This is narrow thinking. It’s a place for self expression and communication. It’s been done through photographs, now it can also be done through a series of still images that, put in sequence, give the illusion of movement. That’s what videos are. There will be bad videos and good videos just as much as there are bad and good photos on Flickr. What to watch and look at (or not) is a choice every user can make for themselves. It’s really that simple.

Update: After posting this, I found this reply from staff member Eric that I thought was worth sharing:
http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/70129/page35/#reply434450

My first reaction was that it sounded like a wonderful idea. I still hold this opinion. This is the kind of thing that all parties will benefit from – designers, wp.com and its users. After reading the above mentioned post at Lorelle’s and following the debate (and please keep in mind that nothing is set on stone yet, the idea is still in development), the only thing that seemed a little off to me (from a designer’s standpoint) is the 50/50 split between wp.com and designers. I realize that my opinion on this is a little biased, but I think I’d still have the same opinion if I wasn’t a theme designer. Other than that, I can only hope that this project takes off as soon as possible because it makes a whole lot of sense no matter how you look at it.

There are lots of issues being discussed and people have all sorts of questions, opinions and ideas, so I will just scratch the surface here and talk about what’s been on my mind:

The 50/50 split:

I don’t think the 50/50 split is necessarily outrageous and I’m sure it could be even justified. I also don’t think that this would make designers think twice before submitting a premium theme to the marketplace, because besides the money, there are other benefits to be gained, such as exposure and reputation. But if I had to guess, I would say that many designers would be more comfortable with something around a 60/40 split. I’m just throwing this in to add a designer’s perspective to the discussion, since Matt is apparently looking for feedback. I would like to hear what other theme developers have to say as well as the facts on wp.com side. To quote Lorelle, “Without facts on the ground, who knows if 50-50 is fair or 30-70?” I share the opinion that we need to learn all the facts before passing any judgement.

Exclusivity:

Will theme designers be allowed to sell their themes elsewhere (like in their own blogs)? Apparently – and hopefully and in theory – yes. Again, I might be biased, but if we’re talking about premium themes, every designer knows how much work goes into developing one of these. If I put that much work into a theme, I would like to be free to market it however I want, including through the wp.com marketplace. OR, I would like to know that having an exclusivity deal with wp.com would compensate the efforts through a better split ratio. Does that make sense? Problem is that “all themes in the marketplace will be available FREE to wordpress.org users“. Well, there goes the designer’s ability to sell the theme elsewhere, which basically turns this into an exclusive deal de facto. So this is what doesn’t make much sense to me right now. Does anyone with further information on this care to shed some light? What if I don’t want my premium theme to be free on wp.org? Does this mean that I can’t sell it through the marketplace?

Theme price:

Maybe I haven’t researched enough yet, but as of now I haven’t read anything about how much these themes will cost, who decides on the price, based on what, whether or not all themes will cost the same and whether or not the price can be adjusted at any given point. There are many variables, but without having given much thought to this, I’d say it could work well if each theme designer was allowed to set their own price and things would self-adjust through the marketplace. The popularity of a theme would result of a combination of 1) the overall quality of the theme and 2) its price. If your theme sucks and you think it’s great, or if your theme is really good but over priced, you’ll be getting feedback from the community as a whole in the form of few or no sales at all. Same thing goes for themes that are really good and fairly priced, they will sell well. I think this is the best way to tell how much a theme is really worth – as opposed wp.com deciding on it, even though they could maybe suggest a price every time a theme is submitted based on their experience and leave it to the designer to go with it or not.

(Edit: Matt says “theme developers will set the price”, and “there will be a pricing floor, probably $10-15.” I’m glad to hear that. This probably means that designers will have control over price changes as well. Right?)

Theme Support:

This is an obvious one, who will be responsible for support? At first glance, the most logical approach to this seems to be having each developer/designer support their own theme. However, availability for providing support varies from one designer/developer to another.

An official marketplace theme support forum would make for a good alternative, allowing developers to give support if so they choose, but at the same time also facilitating support through user interaction. Not to mention a forum would keep a record of all issues and solutions, making it easy for people to find answers on the fly as opposed to having to wait for a response from the developer. Giving support on a one-on-one basis is time consuming and most of the time you’re answering the same questions over and over again. I speak from personal experience with Connections. So my vote is for a support forum.

Criteria:

What is considered a premium theme? As far as coding/programming goes, it shouldn’t be hard to come up with guidelines and criteria, but how about design? I like how Matt states it by saying “Beyond the obvious guidelines of browser compatibility and general not-sucking (…)” and I wish “not-sucking” was enough of a description for what we’re trying to define as criteria, but unfortunately there’s likely to be a very wide gray area there. It’s easy to agree on a kick ass theme. On an average one, not so much.

Theme “Extras”:

Lorelle writes about “The Price of uniqueness over neatness” and this got me thinking that maybe each designer could offer extra items to go with a theme purchase. Things like a custom designed top image or background, for example, or an alternative stylesheet, as Lorelle suggests. They would not make for a unique theme, but such items could add a personal touch to what would otherwise be “the same theme that a thousand other people are using”. This might be stretching it a little, but it’s an idea. That’s what we’re doing, right? Right now, we’re all brainstorming. And the reason this comes to mind is because I’ve had a fairly high number of requests for this kind of thing with Connections. I think there is a market for it.

Still on the subject of uniqueness, I absolutely love Lorelle’s idea of having an auction/bidding on themes. And this also gets me thinking that one of the possibilities is to allow designers to decide whether they want their themes to be available to every wp.com user willing to pay for it or to a restricted number of users who would pay a yearly fee. Again, just throwing in ideas here.

“Credit and promotion is still there in the theme metadata and dashboard, but on the theme itself there should be no external links.” (this includes linking back to the developer’s blog/website)

I’m not sure how I feel about that. I understand why external links in general need to be avoided, but a link back to the designer’s blog/site shouldn’t be that big of a deal in my opinion – and I’m sure designers would appreciate it. However, I don’t see this as a much of a problem, after all, designers will be paid for theme usage.

—

What are your thoughts?

Also, be sure to check Matt’s follow-up post on the marketplace.

Tags: marketplace, wordpress, themes

http://www.twitter.com/PatriciaMuller

Don’t mind the previous posts in Portuguese in this account. As of today I have separate profiles for posting in each language. The one above will receive updates in English only and those of you who prefer Portuguese can follow me at http://www.twitter.com/patricia_muller.

By the way, does anyone know of a better way to handle updates in different languages other than having separate accounts? I could definitely use a better alternative.

Tags: Twitter

There’s still a lot of fine tuning to do – layout adjustments, content pages, plugins, AdSense and so on and so forth. But I’ll get there soon. So bear with me a little longer while I do this.