blog.vlad.im

getting your own URL shortener

3 Jun 2010
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Bit.ly is probably the most used URL shortener in the world right now. Recently they introduced bitly.pro, which is a service that lets you shorten links on a domain you own. It's still in closed beta, but thankfully I've managed to get an invite, and hence my own URL shortening domain was born, bvlad.net. You may see this (a lot) in the links I share on Twitter.

So that's the story, in short.

It's a really cool service and has some neat features, like whenever you're logged in to your Bit.ly account (even in third party clients like Seesmic, Tweetdeck, and so on), any link you shorten will be shortened with your domain by default. There are a few other niceties, like having all links shortened by anyone through bit.ly be shortened through your shortening domain for one domain you own. So, for example, if you try shortening any iRant posts with bit.ly, (not that that makes much sense given how short the URLs on iRant already are, but hey, I'm proving a point here), the short link you'll get won't be bit.ly/something but bvlad.net/something. Cool, as I said, go check it out at their very well chosen domain, bitly.pro.

Now, Darren McConachie asked me why I'd use my own domain for URL shortening on Twitter, saying that he'd be less inclined to click on my links if I did it.

This doesn't make any sense to me. If anything, you should be feeling better about clicking on short links (which are essentially unknown destinations to you) if you know whose domain it is.

Why?

Well it's simple. If anything goes wrong you know who to blame. Me. Whereas if you click on a generic URL shortener problem-link, what are you going to do? Tweet that you hate bit.ly? Like anyone will care.

In conclusion, I'm really happy I did this, and for all the social media gurus out there, this is a great way to improve your personal brand. Perhaps I should write an amazing ebook about it (a $3700 value which you can get for only $199 if you act now!).

P.S.: Don't ask me for invites to Bitly.pro, ask them. Seriously. That's what I did. Just go to the site and fill in the form. Then wait patiently. Your day will come.

need.to.write.

3 Jun 2010
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I think may start to use this blog as my whining avenue. Fair warning.

I don't like to write. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy creating content (or text, or words, or phrases, or sentences, or whatever else you may want to call it), the activity of writing is something I find rather annoying. The fact is that my brain goes through 200 different ideas (sentences) before I can finish typing 5 of them. So it gets frustrating.

But you may have already noticed this, 'thanks' to my obvious lack of writing over the past few months (with some exceptions, granted). The truth is, when you think of it outside the proverbial box, there really isn't that much news in this mobile and tech sphere, it's all mostly noise. And when there is news, I usually am good at finding someone who has done a good job of summing up my beliefs and thoughts on the topic, and so I link to such posts on Twitter.

On the rare occasion that this doesn't happen, I may write a short series of tweets describing my attitude towards a news item, and leave it at that. Fact is, the only time I even consider writing something longer is when I'm outraged by something that happened or I read. Which is why I had to expand my ever-reaching blog network once again and add a dedicated rant blog to it. Which I expect will become the most updated of all my blogs for all the good reasons above.

I'm a big fan of thinking and analyzing news and events. Of putting things in their required context. Of making connections between events or trends. I would say I generally like to create content, but mostly spoken content. When I say I enjoy conversations, I mean that literally, not in the social-media-hyped way.

I have been thinking about doing a podcast, on and off, for more than a year now. Maybe one day something will happen that will finally make me act on that. I'm not sure I want to be on camera yet, but an audio-only start would do, I think. What has (in my mind, at least) hindered my effort so far was that I really don't want to do a podcast alone. I find that a bit silly. I may experiment with this on services such as AudioBoo, but I don't think it's a good long term play.

I have a few people in mind that would make great co-hosts, or even guests, on a hypothetical podcast. I just haven't asked any of them yet. I'm shy like that. Maybe one day I will.

Time will tell.

In the mean time, if you're interested in my opinions, I can't urge you enough to follow me on Twitter (see sidebar for link). Or you could subscribe to this RSS feed, which is a combined feed of all my blog posts and tweets (and hopefully it will work - fingers crossed for this 'hack').

how to contact me

4 Nov 2009
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This is written as something I can point you to if you ask. If you've arrived here without asking how to contact me, it's something good to keep in mind! :)

There are several methods you can use to contact me, depending on how soon you expect a reply. Here they are:

Fastest

@ me on Twitter. I will reply in a maximum of 2-3 days, but usually (>90% of the time) within a few hours.

Slower

If you have my primary email address, you can contact me by email. This is also useful if what you need to tell me doesn't fit in 140 characters, however please expect a reply time of up to one week. Usually this takes anywhere between 1-5 days though. If what you've emailed me is very important, but had to be emailed as it's longer than 140 characters, please consider @-ing me a reminder on Twitter to speed up my email reply.

Note: My primary email address is NOT public, nor will it ever be. If I know you from somewhere else and you don't have it, ask me for it.

Even slower

Use the "contact me via email" link in the sidebar here on the right. This will require you to enter a CAPTCHA to be able to send me an email, BUT the address you will be sending it to is NOT my primary email address. Thus, expect even higher reply times, up to 10 days, but usually between 3-7 days. If you spam me on this address and I know you from somewhere else (say, Twitter), I will immediately end our 'relationship' in those places (again, such as unfollowing you on Twitter - or de-friending you on Facebook, etc.)

Even slower than that

Contact me on Facebook. I *very* rarely check Facebook, and most of the email notifications from Facebook I have turned off. So this is one of the slowest ways possible for you to contact me, but if you must, please expect a reply in 1-2 weeks, usually within one week.

If you decide to write something on my wall or comment to something I've posted on Facebook, please NEVER expect a reply. Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate comments on stuff I post, but I haven't yet found a way of seeing comments from a few days ago (nor have I tried very much, admittedly, because I don't especially like Facebook, but that's another story), and as I said before, I very rarely check Facebook.

Slowest

Contact me on any of the other social networks/media/sites/tools/whatever, all of which are listed at http://v-l-a-d.tel. Some of these I do check sometimes, others I may check as rarely as once in a year. Please don't take your chances here.

Note: Do not contact me via Google Reader. Please do follow me if you find what I share interesting, but use the "comments" section strictly for comments (which I do check once every couple of days). Messages directed at me using Google Reader's "social" features will likely get lost and I won't ever get to read them.

Impossible

My phone numbers are not public (on the Internet, at least). Even if you somehow manage to find them, I will NOT answer if you call me without previously arranging a conversation. And generally, if we haven't connected (by that I mean interacted in this context) heavily on social networks, I won't agree to a phone conversation. There are countless other ways you can get a message to me (see above?!) that are not as ego-centric as placing a phone call.

This also applies to Skype calling.

Also, any text messages I receive from anyone who is not a close friend in real life will be ignored.

IM: While I do have an account on all major IM networks, I log in (to all, thanks to Digsby) maybe once a month. Therefore, sending me messages via IM while I'm offline will most certainly mean I won't see them (this is heavily IM network dependant, and it also depends on Digsby's code, I won't get into more details here).

When I am online on IM and have the status of Available, feel free to talk to me. If I have any other status, please only contact me for urgent matters and do expect the possibility of me not being in front of the computer at that time.

My IM account details are, again, not public. Request them as you would my email address (see above).

Although it may not seem that way at first judging from what you've just read, I do consider myself a social person. I like people. And I believe in people (trying to make that a new religion). But for the best possible results, please do follow this guide. And you'll see just how charming and exceptional I really am :)

a blogging story

19 Sep 2009
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I don’t know what your problems are, but look, I had 3 and I came through it. I believe my strength came from the fact that I never hid those disadvantages, on the contrary, I shouted on the roof whenever I could that I was lebanese and a pharmacist, I also emphasized on my gender more times than I could remember. By acknowledging them, I was able to build an identity that is even more unique and more unforgettable than many others. 10 days ago, during Nokia World 2009, it became clear to me that I was now picking up the fruits of this strategy: when you’re the only girl in a room of 15 male bloggers, the impact is much easier to make, on everyone.

I’ve been around long enough to see many blogs and writers rise incredibly fast, and fall even faster. Plus, we’re now at a time where it takes one original article, a Twitter identity and a couple or retweets to become known. The success is much more easy than it has ever been, but don’t fool yourself. There are a thousand others who also have an original article, a Twitter identity and some retweets You have to find in yourself the will to continue despite the tough times, as well as the originality to differentiate yourself form what the others have to offer.

via dotsisxblog.com

Rita El Khoury shares her blogging story. A very interesting one.

Now I'm known for taking a rather more 'pessimistic', people would say, approach to handing over advice to would-be bloggers (not that I am one, let's get that straight). I'd say I'm a realist more than a pessimist, but anyway, Rita's take is much more optimistic than mine could ever be.

Which, I guess, is rather easy when you have succeeded. It's a great accomplishment that she describes, at least in my opinion, and I'm really happy to read what I know is a true blogging success story. And I do agree with the points she makes in the first paragraph of the excerpt above. Turn what you perceive are weaknesses into your strengths. And just keep going.

But, I have to add a couple of things. You have to be ready for the possibility of nothing good ever happening even if you keep going for years. My opinion now is that you shouldn't attempt writing if you don't enjoy writing in itself, and also the subject(s) you're focusing on. It also helps if you don't know what AdSense is. Or are able to make yourself forget.

Also, one original article and a couple of retweets... are absolutely nothing. Trust me. I know.

As for the thousands of people creating original content... I don't know where they are. I'd really like them to exist. But honestly what I see most in smaller blogs is just the constant strive to out-Engadget Engadget. And I'll say it again: drop it. It will never happen. Don't be 'them', be yourself. Whatever that means. I for one am sick of reading press releases in blogs. I subscribe to PR feeds for that, you know?

Congratulations, Rita, and keep up the good work!

the challenge of not adding tags

15 Jul 2009
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Tags. A word used so much, yet with so many meanings.

Tags are helpful, I'm told, in a blog, because it makes readers stick around. They see a tag they're interested in, click it, and bam!, all posts with that tag will show up and then he/she will read all of them, while dutifully clicking on 30-40 AdSense/Chitika/AdBrite ads and a couple of ad-widgets (yes, there are those, too). Whew.

Frankly, I don't believe one word of that is true.

I think that, similarly to how people have grown to be experts at ignoring ads, they'll (unwillingly, perhaps, but still) ignore anything on a page that isn't specifically the content they're there after. Especially people who know what an RSS reader is. And let's face it, it's those people that I target with my blogs.

So, in spite of Posterous having tags, I plan to not use them. Ever.

This is a challenge because it means that discovery of other posts is only possible by going to the home page and scrolling down. And then hitting Next Page and so on. And since I'm not very sure this will ever happen, the challenge is that each individual post has to be worthy of your attention.

Let's say, for argument's sake, that you would click on a tag if it existed to discover other posts. You'd be more likely to do so if the post you're reading isn't especially well written, or entertaining, or filled with useful content. This means that all of my posts will have to be all that.

I can promise I will try.

As for you, there's always clicking on the title, which takes you to the home page. And scrolling. :)

why posterous?

11 Jul 2009
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See, blogging is not easy. I don't mean the ideas you have, or the content. I mean the act of blogging. Of inserting images, videos. Spacing. Bolding or italicizing text to make it more readable. Linking to previous posts of yours as much as you can (thanksalot, Google). Linking to sources and other blogs covering the same thing. And let me not even try to go into getting pictures and video for the review off the phone and to the computer, and such. All of these are activities that are not necessarily in a direct relation with the content you wish to produce, but nevertheless things that "have to be done". Things that always took me at least 3x the time the writing itself did.

This is not good. All the blogging platforms and clients are anything but intuitive. All were designed in an age when "blog" was a word maybe 500 people knew. This has to change, but sadly, to this day, it hasn't.

via symbianontheline.com

Hell yeah, I just quoted myself. But it was for a good cause, I promise.

In essence, the excerpt above is why I chose Posterous.

Why Posterous is my new blogging platform.

Yeah, you read that right, blogging platform.

Because to me, that's what it is. Lifestreaming? I don't know about that. I also don't know why you can't use Wordpress or Blogger or any other blogging platform for that. But hey, some people like the term. And like to praise themselves for leaving blogging. In favor of lifestreaming. While still blogging from time to time. In a lifestream.

No, that doesn't make sense to me either, but then I'm not the next guy trying to invent and subsequently own a buzzword of the day.

And in my view, blogging should die. I said it's dead at some point on Twitter (before the cool kids did, but that's another story). Well, sadly, it's not yet.

By blogging I mean the process of actually writing a post. The process that resembles what I've described above (in the quote). Sure, not all blog publishing is made equal, you say. Windows Live Writer, you say. Direct ftp publishing, you say.

All the same, I say. It's too complicated to blog when you just feel like it. When you have an urge. When you read something you like so much, or hate so much, that you feel you just have to write an opinion about (it). You can't 'blog' for 10 minutes. You have to 'blog' for (the time it takes to write the post)*(at least 2). If you care about actually having readers, that is.

This happens because we use such antiquated publishing systems.

That is all. That should change.

And while it's not 100% different, Posterous is leading the way towards this change. Mark my words. It will happen. And these guys, knowingly or not, are at the forefront of something that will take probably a few years to fully develop, but will.

See, I dream of writing a post in plain text. And then the 'platform' will sort out that if I wrote an @someone, and said Twitter in the same sentence, that's a Twitter handle. And auto-link it. Similarly, when I reference, say "Engadget's post on the iPhone" in should do an iFrame-y inline search of posts on Engadget about that. So I can choose what the link is just by clicking. Not copying the link and pasting it. If it sees an empty line above and under something that is not a sentence, it should understand that that's a sub-title and bold it or something. I could go on.

Till that day comes, Posterous lets me publish by email. And just throw it links to videos or images, which it then automatically embeds in the post. Or I can attach anything. Again, automatically embedded. And, in this case, hosted.

I'm writing this in Posterous' bookmarklet. Which allows me to select some text from a web page, which it then quotes, as above, with a link to the original thing. And underneath, I can write this mess I'm doing.

It's not 100% intuitive yet, this new blog publishing era I'm talking about, but it'll get there. It has to.

So here I am, hosting my blogs on a lifestreaming platform. LOL.

Oh, and one more thing about Posterous. I love that there are no themes and no customization options, no plugins, no html editor, no nothing. I really hope they keep it that way.

Why?

Because this imposed, forced simplicity is what brought Twitter where it is today. I'm all for customization in general, but not of anything related to what I write. I like to customize my OS, my browser, the apps I use. I don't, however, enjoy wasting countless hours or days even 'designing' my blog. Or my Twitter page/profile. Or anything else like this. Why? Because I don't care. And if this possibility flat out doesn't exist, no one will care. Which makes the content more visible than the 300 AdSense units in the sidebar.

And one more one more thing. To comment, you can sign in with Twitter or Facebook. Enough said.

Welcome to my new blog network, all residing on Posterous! (see sidebar for details)

---

And now, a few very little feature requests for the awesome guys running Posterous. Please add the ability to create links in the sidebar, a more prominent RSS feed icon/link, the ability to remove or make the Posterous logo smaller, and the ability to add your own logo.

I think that will do.

getting your own URL shortener

need.to.write.

how to contact me

a blogging story

the challenge of not adding tags

why posterous?

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