My opinion on the definition of Blog, and the its future.
 

Blogs are in essence, a free CMS that allows content to be presented in an organized fashion to end users. A blog is not a specific type of content, its a cost effective and specific type of presentation of content.

The reason I bring this up is because I see a lot of discussion involving blogs which seem to intertwine blogs to specific content. Because of blogs such as TMZ.com (and the like), we have been sold on the idea that a blog is opinionated / journalistic / personal text driven content. For the past couple of years, the adult industry has began merging the TGP concept with the blog concept. This is being done because:

A) Its easy. Many webmasters seek easy solutions that allow them to mass produce; While I think the days of mass production are coming to an end due to changes in Google, as well as an ever growing sector of jaded (wiser) consumers, using a blog to present TGP content isn't compromising the integrity of the blog; on the contrary, it actually demonstrates the software quite nicely.

B) The software is free. This is something that is consistently overlooked and I will touch on that more shortly, as it is a very important point to understand.

C) Search engine listings. Webmasters have a history of pounding out the production of pages and setups that are targeted at exposing a (weakness / opening) in search engines. This commonly leads to duplicate content issues which often times results in SE penalties, but more importantly, lead to a setup that isn't nearly as profitable as it once was. Consumers grow wise to the setups, even if they don't understand the reasoning.

When the New York Times had to make the dreaded progression to an online format, this presented two enormous stressors: 1) Moving away from paper posed a huge financial threat to the business model. 2) How on earth could you possibly move that content into a system as organized as the native format?

They realized that stressor one was something that had to be looked past for now, however, stressor two was clearly an issue of development. As everyone knows, development can be a huge financial strain. Maybe $100k invested? Who knows? You have to consider more than just actual developers time, you have to also add in an entirely new training module for past and future employees (most of which were most likely not open to moving from a typewriter to a word processor).

Now where is the primary source of online news coming from? Blogs. And that's because it is a solution, not a style. If wordpress were outright packaged today, I would guess it would go for $15k or much more? I threw a number out there, but you get the idea. This is where the "free" portion plays such a heavy role in defining the concept, it gave everyday users an ability to present content in an organized manner, without the heavy costs or development time.

So moving forward with the blog now redefined conceptually, we have a completely new use for it. Rather than looking at it from a content perspective, we appeal more to the content management perspective, and that is extremely important as it opens up the uses and gives us insight into the future.

Are blogs going away? If you take into consideration what I wrote above, the answer is obviously no. They are simply going to mutate in ways that make them more useful and possibly in ways that present development cost (by developers looking to cash in).

So not only are blogs not going away, they are likely to become more useful than ever. People are always seeking content, and people are always looking to distribute content. TGP software is only useful for TGP's. Blog software opens up a wealth of possibilities. Using TGP as a relative comparison to the blog model is irrelevant, as the two are not one in the same.

The point? Blogs are not going away and if you are thinking outside of the box, you can likely find a great use for the software.

If anyone has any questions, I would love to help where I can. I will watch the thread closely. I expect if this actually goes anywhere, a few more people will contribute answers / solutions / thoughts.

Thanks,

Second page bound.

business too the back,bullshit to the front:disgust

One thing's for sure, WordPress is a highly configurable CMS that's useful for all sorts of non-bloggy things. I'm using it, for example, to expose a part of my domain portfolio to the web (see sig).

However, I disagree that "blog" is defined by the method of presentation rather than the content provided. I believe that a "blog" has a specific social definition, having to do with the pacing at which new information is presented (roughly daily, for a period of months or years), the order in which it is presented (most recent displayed first) and the community to which it is presented (two overlapping sets consisting of blog readers and other bloggers, with random searchers making up a third weak set that may indeed be where the money comes from despite not being part of your blogging community). If you don't have community interaction (which includes links to other community members, and feedback from other community members in the form of comments and/or inbound links) you're not blogging, although you may indeed be using blog software to present pictures, news headlines, porn galleries, search engine marketing, updates about your business, or whatever.

IMO it's a mistake to confuse the tool (blog software, usually WordPress, a highly versatile and easily configurable free CMS) with the work (a blog, if that's what you use the tool to produce, or any of a wide variety of non-blog sites that are easily produced using that same CMS). People are forever building adult sites with blog software, discovering that the result sucks, going "all that blog hype was bullshit", and never understanding that they didn't have a blog because they didn't understand what blogs were and didn't "get" what makes blogs special and specially profitable.

None of which undermines your main point, with which I agree: there are a ton of useful, innovate, and profitable ways to use blog software.

I agree with everything you stated, the bold is what everyone should pay close attention to.

The benefits to blogging are se based. Traffic flows organically from the se's and results in longterm bookmarkers if done right. Running a blog like a tgp is silly and counter productive.

I think a lot of people only devote energy the SE portion, which can and is often times counter productive. I am by no means validating the use of Wordpress as TGP software, I am simply pointing out that CMS feature.

You can run a blog without SE goals. Many blogs are word of mouth and content based.

Just my opinion though.

Its like that with everything else. 95% of the people do what they do because they imitate someone else who had sucess or what that "someone" have said. They never truly understand what they are doing and that is why they will never succeed, reach the potential or go beyond.

Progress is based on innovation. Innovation is not done by imitation

Chio, I don't disagree, I've made a lot of money from search engine traffic to my blogs and I don't expect that to ever go away (especially the long tail searches).

However, as Google gets more and more insane while gulping an ever-larger share of all searches, I'm discovering that *good* blogs done long-term have even more value as a generator of organic traffic. Once you get hooked into a blogging community and tapped into a flow of traffic that isn't search-based, you can make money even on the days when Google is pouting in the corner and refusing to share its toys.

i would have to totally dissagree with you.

Informative indeed!

Although Wordpress can be (and is very often now) used as a CMS, it's really not a good solution. There is great open source CMS software that is more powerful than Wordpress and much less resource intensive - Joomla is a good example of that.

I really do believe that people would benefit more from using Wordpress just for real blogging and other software for a CMS solution. People are taking advantage of WP as a CMS because it has practically no learning curve but it is the lazy man's way out.

GREAT fucking post Cory. I'm getting into a little blogging for a project coming up so I'll be all over this thread for info, prolly hit you up too :winkwink: have a great weekend brother :pimp

Oh, I agree, I am not arguing that it is a good solution; more over, I am arguing that it is a solution. There is a blogging culture and blogs are best used as "blogs," however, I think that understanding the basic concept of Wordpress can go a long ways.

And I don't agree that it is only yields search engine benefits.

Thanks for the post Viki,

Anytime. Maybe I can make it out to Barcelona again this year :thumbsup

This is sort of common sense stuff. Nothing really groundbreaking said here, sorry Cory.

Its an idea on how to use it. No offense, but there are plenty of garbage threads you can read today if this one doesn't work for you. I would just say respect any inkling of business on the board and go with it.

If you read the end, it asked for contributions. I will take this post as yours.

I personally think blogs, word press in particular, is the greatest things to happen to web since AL Gore. (LOL).
Until something easier, friendlier (SE), and more customizable comes out, I have no desire (outside of commerce) to build, or have another static website.
JMO

I never said this was a garbage thread. I merely pointed out that what you said was common sense. Anyone who has a blog or has any business sense whatsoever can only come to this conclusion by looking at basic trends either online at other sites or looking at your own statistics.

Here's a pat on the back for making something business related on GFY, but I can't stroke your ego for simply typing a TON of stuff to say:

"Blogs are growing, they bring SE traffic but the landscape is changing. If you don't use duplicate content you will be fine, and if you make your site unique and interesting you'll grow. Oh and new software makes sites easy to manage."

I will be impressed if someone says something groundbreaking, and doesn't just point out a bunch of facts.

Ok, so, I might have missed it but what exactly is the future of blogs? Or were you making the point that there _is_ a future for blogs? Isn't saying that a blog will mutate into something bigger and better akin to saying that future, open-source content management systems will become bigger and better (according to your conceptualization of the quintessential "blog")?

It just seems like an awful lot of text for an obvious point, unless I'm missing your thesis completely. :Oh crap

I guess I was hoping for a decent thread to come about, which has happened in the past; however, the level of bitter on GFY is so high anymore that it isn't even practical to make an effort.

Amazing to say the least.

Nevertheless, thanks for your input.

To follow up, I post threads such as this one, as well as the one in my sig (which went far better) because I want to make an effort to grow our business. With this thread, I am trying to gain business from those that aren't accustom to using blogs (similar to the thread in my sig).

I don't do big contest threads, or pic threads, this is how I do business. I full appreciate everyone's methods, however, this is mine.

I just purchased a set of 10 SEO Blog packages from Jace. I was hoping to give out a few in the thread if it grew. Obviously I have to assume I need to give them out privately.

I don't think I was being bitter at all. I was asking for clarification. All the sites that I have are blogs, and so I'm keenly interested in the topic. When someone starts a thread on the future of blogs then I will certainly take notice.

Cory, clearly you are bitter if you can't explain further what you obviously spent a lot of time trying to talk about.

By trying to sound clever and smart, you sounded like a rambling Ezine article writer, trying to lure in some more affiliates or boost your own ego. Fact remains what you said means nothing other than saying "I like blogs and they are getting big. BTW google likes 'em too!" So until you have something original and provocative to say, I guess I am in your "bitter" camp.

I will icq you in a bit, sorry was at lunch.

I in no way meant to imply that you are bitter.

Nice read Cory, sure some of it's "common sense" as others have pointed out...but I have found that for example...even pro baseball players have to revert back to the basics every now and then...why? Because what was once "common sense," loses its effectiveness in the place of complacency.

Question...in regards to duplicating content.

I have some blogs that are for example... on domain.com
I have made specific niche / product type blogs off off that domain.

product.domain.com is the new blog. That blog discusses that product ONLY...will this affect SE results?

No. You're "rooting". There are theories but you are fine, it's almost like having separate domains.

Thanks, while I respect the resident marketing schematics that are GFY, I don't admire them. I stay out of them. My target market are those that aren't knowledgeable in regards to blogs. We want to help people expand.

I also enjoy when a thread spawns a nice discussion.

Cool thx.

You know, with so many tens of thousands of useless threads on GFY, Cory's are rarely lumped into those. This is yet another fine example of a great discussion the industry desperately needs. As mentioned, far too many fit into that 95% of people following by example and not actually understanding.

I will chime in with more when I have more time, was just taking a moment for a sanity break.

I appreciate that, seriously.

And I also appreciate Brad contributing.

Thanks man,

Are you in the OC yet?

I was reading ever 2 seconds a new blog goes up.

Tony,

I would venture a guess that is correct. Its become so easy to set up, that it almost seems counterproductive (particularly in adult).

Some ideas that programs could use to optimize using blogs:

1) Open up a blog for affiliates and push subscriptions on webmasters. This is a great solution for any program, content provider or traffic aggregator. Webmaster newsletters are really going the wayside due to saturation and spam filters. Subscribers get your message instantaneously.

2) If you have a blog for surfers, push all the traffic generation ideas on them. For example, install sociable and push them to use it (and use it yourself). Really push for subscriptions, I don't see enough blogs doing that. Many mainstream blogs make a post a month requesting subscribers, or they make mention of it in random post.

3) Provide quality feeds and moreover, provide instructions on how to use them. So much business is lost these days due to programs marketing towards those that already know how to utilize this arena. Why not get those guys that are established in other areas to give you a try?

4) Look over some of the things Jace and Edgeprod are working on. They really offer some outstanding solutions. Working with Jace on a blog setup is an outstanding way to get the ball rolling.

That was just a general statement, not aimed at you or your knowledge base.

In my opinion...worthless to most on here. a blog is like a tgp (or any marketing tool) If you use "tgp software" to "make" your tgp with a script then...you aren't gonna make the kind of money that is out there to be had. Same with a blog. I THINK I know my tgp biz. Anyone that knows me can tell you that. Always done by hand, with lot's of personality thrown in.
I've begun working in blogs for the last couple of years as well. Using the same philosophy. I use wordpress, but I work on it myself...no scripts, no feeds. Of course I'll steal text if it's a good descriptive text. But I also write tons of my own as well as "tweak" lots of them.
My experience has been that if you can entertain your audience they will reward you. But if they sense you are running a "cookie cutter" blog (or tgp) they won't.

That's the conundrum here. You have a lot of very smart people who may not have the instincts to entertain the crowd. A left side of the brain vs. the right side of the brain kind of thing. I'm lucky, I guess. I've been in the entertainment biz my whole life. I walked into this business and just started making money by doing what comes naturally to me. Yet I have seen thousands of "tgp's" spring up over the last few years that don't remotely have a human touch to them at all. Then I read people matter-of-factly state that tgp's can't make money anymore. Yet, me and the small handful of people who were making money 8 years ago...are still making great money. Nothing has changed for us.

And now that I am turning my attention to blogs, I have seen tremendous sales using the same methods.

Don't get me wrong, I admire programmers. I have a very good one who works for me. But if you really want to make some money, put that stuff aside and DO IT BY HAND. Surfers really do see through all the scripts and know when a real person is actively running a site. You'll end up working 12 to 14 hours a day like I do...but the rewards are substantial. And the blog can be a money making machine if done "correctly". At least the two that I have are making sales above and beyond anything I've seen in recent years.

Just one note regarding [C]. Actually there is a way to avoid the content duplication problem. Many sponsors already have morphing feeds. The first affiliate program that started to provide such a solution was Real-Bucks.com - I did a morphing plugin for their blog more than a year ago.

Furthermore, a couple of months ago I made this morphing plugin available for everyone. Just take a look at these threads:
1) http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=732473 - affiliate program solution.
2) http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=743335 - stand-alone morphing solution for individual blog owners.

As I mentioned above, both plugins were tested on real blogs within more than a year, and they really work!

Most important statement in this thread. :thumbsup

I have some more "common sense" to add...After playing with blogs and several auto generated content/parsing/posting tools for about three years or so, I am slowly but surely abandoning these tools and converting all my splogs to "real" blogs.

This is the only way to go as a real person builds a reputation with surfers and SE's alike and you are essentially immune to worrying about any real or imagined SE changes and you don't need to spend any time on getting backlinks.

The days of 1000 adsense splogs generating $1 a day each are over for most of us. The only ones surviving for now appear to be those that happen to have backlinks that have weight B]for now[/B].

However the days of $100 a day from 100 "real" blogs are there for the taking if you want to put in the effort.

"Fuck Off, I can't even keep one blog updated regularly with hand written unique content, how the fuck could I manage 100 or 1000?" I hear you say.

Well that is where you need to use automation. Not to post someone else's feeds or change them up a bit into kinda readable unique posts and auto post them, but to dramatically speed up how you get the information that you will base your post on and how you get it to your blog.

Pick subjects/niches that you are actually interested in. Unless you are brain dead you should be able to come up with a pretty good selection..and unless you are a real freak, there will probably be quite a few people interested in the same area. Alternatively work the other way and become interested/knowledgeable in the most popular areas.

Ok so how do you come up with what to write? (especially true if it's an actual post with a specific subject or point rather than "Hey click here to check this girl's tits out"... you need to read...A LOT..REGULARLY...LIKE AN HOUR A DAY OR MORE.

Use tools like feed readers and news/authority hubs where you can aggregate the latest news and/or detailed info in one place to save time.

If you really hate reading a screen for extended periods, mix it up and print some of that shit out or buy some books in that subject area. (again more useful idea for mainstream rather than trying to find a book on cheerleaders in Antarctica)

Reading isn't good enough. You have to read fucking fast but still take most of it in so you can regurgitate it out into a meaningful post later. You need to make a concerted effort to dramatically improve your reading speed which probably hasn't changed since high school.

I have tried a few different speed reading programs but the one I currently use is called photoreading and blows all the others away IF YOU STICK WITH IT.

Ok so you know generally where to find the info and how to absorb a ton of it fast..how do you speed up the actual posting part especially if you are a two finger typist? I have just started very recently playing with text to speech software. It is working quite well and has improved dramatically since I last tried it several years ago when I would say "My name is Fred Jones" and it would come up with something like "By the way fried bones" :1orglaugh

Lastly there are programs out there or get one made to consolidate your blog list urls and user/passes to speed up the logging in and out to each blog etc part.

You don't need to update every blog daily. If you update each one even weekly and get each post down to a minute or two you will be able to manage to keep a shitload of blogs from having that not so fresh feeling. I'm not there yet :winkwink: but using these guidelines I really believe it is possible to manually update 1000 blogs weekly in a couple hours a day. :thumbsup

Great thread Cory.
What happened to MA? :error

- David

Not there yet, but will be arriving for a week and a half visit on the 14th, immediately following XBiz.

This is precisely what I've been starting to do in my mainstream projects and (to a lesser extent) my adult blogs. I also can't stress enough that you should be interested or knowledgeable of your niches.

After all the blogs I've made - mainstream and adult - I started a personal blog for the first time a few weeks ago. And I have to say, I can't remember when was the last time I was able to write so easily. Whereas some blogs I struggle to write a decent paragraph, I'm writing 500-1000 words per post on my personal blog. It also covers a niche so it's not just posts of me bullshitting and rambling on about random shit.

Thanks man.

I got too busy to focus on MA, sadly. I am producing some new mainstream sites right now, including a blog directory and video site (all integrated into one). Hit me up some time if you would like to see it.

Lunch???

Cut to the chase, promote wegcash.com and make some loot.

:1orglaugh:thumbsup

Lololololololol...

:thumbsup