I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue
I’d go crawling down the avenue
There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
To make you feel my love
- MAKE YOU FEEL MY LOVE

In order to understand the social media douchebaggery that happens on our interwebs, you need to hold your nose and dive in some times. I try most things, but get bored of them pretty quickly. So I figured I had to try Empire Avenue (EAv), the stock trading game in which the stocks are people, and the bigger the douchebag the higher the value. Fortunately you don’t need to piss off invite your friends to get started.

First thing to say about this is, unlike most others, it is actually quite fun and quite addictive. By this I mean in the same way a stock market simulation game is fun and addictive. So I can recommend giving it a try by wasting an evening. Your value is based on the usual supply/demand/market forces, but also on your “score” on various social networks – currently Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook, Flickr and YouTube. I spent longer on it than I did on SecondLife (in which I spent all my money on poker and whoring and was destitude in about two hours) and it’s more fun than Quora ever got (which was probably when it was down due to the recent EC2 fiasco).

For me the best thing about the 4 hours of my life I’ve so far wasted was randomly bumping into and having a chat with Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang / (e)JOWYANG). At the time I was broke so could only buy 1 share in what is likely to become one of the biggest stocks on EAv. And he unwisely invested in (e)BOOF. It was interesting talking with all these big cheeses discussing the potential impact of EAv. There are theories that this’ll be the next big thing and that the social currency may even have some real world value in the long run. I’m rather skeptical on that. Although if you’re a moron you can by Eaves (the game currency) with your hard earned real cash.

If Jowyang thinks I'm a good investment ... Click to Enlarge

I made some pretty dumb-ass investments in (e)IANT, (e)BLOEM, (e)PIEW, (e)BIGBLUEMOOSE and (e)SLWR who were all overvalued already and, seeing as they’re not douches, probably aren’t going to rise much. I bought some (e)IRI seeing she’s responsible for me trying this thing. And in a fit of madness I bought me a piece of (e)PMONKS, which is surely going to be worthless pretty soon. I’ll dump that after this post I think.

I wasn’t very surprised to see quite a few of my Twitter followers on EAv already, but only two of my FaceBook friends were on. Good thing too, ’cause my real friends are a worthless bunch that wouldn’t be worth shit to a shrewd Empire Avenue investor like me.

I have no idea about the strategy of this thing. A good way to make a bit of cash seems to be to monitor the “Recent Arrivals” section, and speculatively buy shares in most of them. If you’re quick, maybe a Google search, in particular to see if they’re rich in Twitter followers. People with a lot of followers seem to double in value as soon as they link their Twitter account to their profile, so you have to be fast. Price hikes from activity on the other network take much longer as, because they’re not public like Twitter, EAv has to run off and index them only once they’ve got your details. I’m told the algorithms value LinkedIn recommendations. Which I, for one, don’t.

Finally, a few strategy tips from me, which I sure to be excellent seeing as I’ve got about 4 hours experience:
- Unlocking achievements gets you cash. So link everything like your blog, FaceBook, LinkedIn and join a few communities
- People seem to search the Recent Arrivals section and buy people cheap if they look cool, before they manage to link their Twitter profiles and share prices rise
- Buy (e)BOOF

Have fun out there.

You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows
- SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES

You’re not going to believe this. I’ve been getting some criticism. “Your posts are too long”, some people cried. “Lose the Twitterfeed”, shouted someone else. “Your Southpark Avatar is so 15 year old” claimed an anonymous coward. Hey man, I made that avatar myself. That hurts. But seeing as I work for an agency that prides itself on its insight and user research, I decided it was time to do some user research of my own. As the budget I assign to run this blog is three fifths of fuck-all, Survey Monkey was the logical choice. Thanks so much to the 37 people that answered it.

Firstly, let’s talk about the Bob Dylan blog introductions that I’ve been pouring my heart and soul in to. As the chart below shows, more than a third of the respondents don’t read them. And another bunch want a change of theme.

So I thought about this. Granted, some of the quotes are, at best, very tenuously linked to the topic at hand – I need to improve the relevance. But Bob’s got so much more to give. I’m going to try not to repeat songs yet, but again, some tunes have so many classic lyrics that I might have to. If I do a new a brand theme, it’ll be in 2010. After deciding this, I tweeted my new found conviction:

To which someone responded:He has a ridiculous avatar, and what kind of  name is @golansleepweed? What does that mean, anyway? Nevertheless, this clown also happens to be the Head of LBi Intergalatic Creative Domination so I feel obliged to listen. I know which way the wind is blowing, so Bob is staying on the blog. After all, if he’s good enough for sat-nav, he’s good enough for me. Thanks, Chris, for the vote of confidence.

Some other findings of the so-called “research”:

• 19% of you actually want links to open in new windows. 64% agree with the no-new-window policy. 19% don’t care. Sweet.
• Only 13% of you found the survey annoying. 87% of my readers are all round nice guys. The web is about giving, man.
• This one surprised me. 76% like the automated Twitterfeed announcements.  13% don’t care and only 11% want them dead. So they’re staying, giving me less reason to retweet my own posts and feel like a douchebag.
• Only 12% think I should tweet with my real name instead of @McBoof. 41% don’t care, and 47%, for some reason, like my dumb-ass name.
• On the other hand, more people think my beautiful South Park avatar is lame (29%) than like it (24%). Most don’t care
• 56% don’t care about my WordPress theme, 44% think it rocks, and 0% (yes, zero) think it sucks. Woot.

And the highlights of the comments:

• Most people want me to swear more. There was a wee bit of concern of kids reading over shoulders and evil corporate firewall traffic snoopers. There was far more swearing on the survey than on my blog.
• I need a proof reader. Badly.
• My posts are too long and ramble a bit. This is because it’s quite difficult to write a well-constructed, thought out post that actually has a point.
• Someone wants me to write more about Kas Thomas.

Finally, I’d like to point out that I’ve been involved in more than a few projects on which the client commissioned my agency to perform high quality user research and then chose to ignore the results. They’re idiots. I guess that makes me an idiot too.

P.S. @Ivanka, I hope you aren’t reading this. See what happens to User Research here after you leave …

Don't worry, Bob. I'm not ditching you just because the crowds are baying for blood

And the ship’s wise men
Will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin’.
- WHEN THE SHIP COMES IN

So, you want to follow the CMS world on Twitter. How about the ability to follow the creme de la creme of the CMS Twitterati in a couple of clicks. Well, my friend, you’ve struck gold. [UPDATE: Even more gold than promised. The list is growing. More than 40]

First, here’s is my list. I’m sure I’ve forgotten people so many apologies and DM me to get added or if I’ve spelt something wrong. I’m not including any CMS vendors here. I am including people who work for vendors but don’t use Twitter to sell. You can get a list of vendors on Twitter on the Gilbane blog. For those that are impatient, I’m recommending Twitterator to follow all the users in one go. All of these folk are engaging on Twitter and active in the blogosphere. You can filter them first if you’d like. In no particular order:

1. cmswatch – My favourite CMS analysts
2. cmswire – My favourite CMS news source
3. cmsreport – More CMS news and chatter
4. jboye – Organises the best CMS conference in the world
5. TonyByrne – CMS Watch, Founder
6. theresaregli – CMS Watch, Search and DAM
7. jarrodgingras – CMS Watch, Content and Usability
8. kasthomas – CMS Watch, Geek, Web CMS
9. adriaanbloem – CMS Watch, Search and SoCo
10. janusboye – The man behind jboye
11. lwelchman – WelchmanPierpoint, Web CMS and Operations Guru
12. cpierpoint – WelchmanPierpoint, Coffee Addict
13. jdavidhobbs – WelchmanPierpoint, CMS Consultant
14. dkonizeski – WelchmanPierpoint, Web Operations
15. apoorv – Wipro Guru – Portals and Web CMS
16. irina_guseva – CMS Wire writer, says it as it is
17. barbmosher – CMS Wire writer, SharePoint junkie
18. fgilbane – COE of Gilbane Group, Content and Web
19. billtrippe – Gilbane Analyst
20. lehawes – Gilbane, Collaboration and KM
21. lciarlone – Gilbane, Content Globalisation
22. tim_walters – Info and Knowledge Mgmt., Forrester
23. kreidy – 451 Group Analyst, CMS and Collab
24. jmancini77 – President of AIIM
25. skjekkeland – Vice President of AIIM
26. sggottlieb – Content Guru and Open Source Analyst
27. halvorson – Content Strategist, Author
28. rahelab – Content Strategist, Intentional Design
29. StepTwoDesigns – Intranet Talk from Down Under
30. jimmurphyamr – Knowledge and Content Management, AMR Research
31. netjmc – Intranet and Portal Strategy
32. ldallasBMOC – Big Men on Content
33. dankeldsen – Co-founder of Information Architected
34. McBoof – Compiler of useless info and lists.
35. jameshoskins – Wise CMS man
36. jamesurquhart – The Cloud Myth Buster
37. piewords – ECM/CMIS techie/blogger
38. pierotintori – CEO of TERMINALFOUR. CMS Techie.
39. jessewilkins – ECM, ERM, Former USMC drill instructor
40. julesdw – SDL Tridion – blogger
41. puf – SDL Tridion Developer Ubergeek
42. davidnuescheler – Day Blogger, CMS Guru
43. kevinc2003 – And the Day CMO
44. IanTruscott – Alterian Blogger
45. yuvalararat – Vignette Blogger
46. johnnewton – Founder of Alfresco and Documentum
47. dcaruana – Alfresco Chief Architect, CMIS, Open Source
48. jeffpotts01 – Optaros ECM practice lead, Open Source fan
49. bdelacretaz – Open Source, Apache Foundation and Day R&D
50. trieloff – Day DAM and SoCo expert
51. dirkmshaw – Vignette Social Media Strategy
52. ebarroca – CEO at Nuxeo
53. sfermigier – Yet another Nuxeo ECM man
54. efge – Nuxeo R&D, Architect. CMIS man.
55. MartinSS – Open Text ECM architect
56. pmonks – Alfresco consultant. CMS visionary
57. justincormack – Squiz Tech Guru. CMS visionary
58. darrenferguson – Interwoven and Umbraco CMS Dude
59. cherylmckinnon – Open Text, Enterprise 2.0
60. twentworth12 – Web Solutions Evangelist, ex-Autonomy>/li>
61. craighepburn – RedDot (Open Text) Social Media Strategy
62. adrianmateljan – RedDot (Open Text) CMS Blogger
63. jeanmariepascal – Open Source ECM Consultant
64. erikmhartman – Independent Consultant, Writer, Speaker
65. LuisSala – Alfresco Big Gun
66. scroisier – Jahia Strategy
67. OlegR – Content and Text Mining Evangelist
68. athraen – EPiServer R&D Developer, Blogger, CMIS.NET
69. danielchalef – KnowledgeTree CEO, fellow Saffa
70. tony_bailey – Gin Drinking CMS consultant at Acquity Group
71. tednyberg – Agency side EPiServer MVP, Umbraco and more.
72. proops – Independent, CMS Blogger
73. izahoor – Independent, Public Sector CMS Dude
74. daponovich – CMS Myth blogger
75. jeffcram – CMS Myth blogger

So, next step is to copy the nicely formatted list at the bottom of this post, and paste them into Twitterator as shown in the screenshot below. You need to give them your Twitter creds, sadly. James promised he’ll write me a bulk following program that uses OAuth. Don’t worry if you’re already following some of the users. It handles these pretty well.

[UPDATE: Forget Twitterator! TweetML is far better. Use this link: http://tweepml.org/McBoof-s-CMS-Gurus/]

And here is the list in a nice cut and paste format. Stick them into your clipboard, and off to Twitterator. That’s it. Happy following. Don’t forget to delete me if you only like serious CMS chatter. Finally, if you want some of these people’s blogs, have a look at the OPML Feed of my blogroll, or the large list compiled by @proops.

cmswatch
cmswire
cmsreport
jboye
TonyByrne
theresaregli
jarrodgingras
kasthomas
adriaanbloem
janusboye
lwelchman
cpierpoint
jdavidhobbs
dkonizeski
apoorv
irina_guseva
barbmosher
fgilbane
billtrippe
lehawes
lciarlone
tim_walters
kreidy
jmancini77
skjekkeland
sggottlieb
halvorson
rahelab
StepTwoDesigns
jimmurphyamr
netjmc
ldallasBMOC
dankeldsen
McBoof
jameshoskins
jamesurquhart
piewords
pierotintori
jessewilkins
julesdw
puf
davidnuescheler
kevinc2003
IanTruscott
yuvalararat
johnnewton
dcaruana
jeffpotts01
bdelacretaz
trieloff
dirkmshaw
ebarroca
sfermigier
efge
MartinSS
pmonks
justincormack
darrenferguson
cherylmckinnon
twentworth12
craighepburn
adrianmateljan
jeanmariepascal
erikmhartman
LuisSala
scroisier
OlegR
athraen
danielchalef
tony_bailey
tednyberg
proops
izahoor
daponovich
jeffcram

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
- IT’S ALRIGHT, MA (I’M ONLY BLEEDING)

So here’s a question. How many times is one meant to announce the arrival of their latest and greatest blog post on Twitter before they look like a knob head?

Twitter is a good traffic source for clowns like me that have just started a blog. It isn’t like millions of people know you exist, so you’ve got to advertise somewhere. Have a look at my Google Analytics Traffic Sources graph:

Try to ignore the grey piece of pie. That’s all the “other” sources aggregated together. Direct traffic is biggest.  I get slightly more visitors via the Twitter web site than Google. And I have a feeling a large chunk of the direct traffic is from desktop Twitter clients such as TweetDeck or Seesmic. I’d estimate at least a third of my traffic is Twaffic. As an aside, if anyone has a good way to track a) how many clicks came via each Twitter client (which is probably impossible) or b) which tweets actually generated the traffic (which is possible if you encode more things into your shortened URL) I’d love to here about it. 

So, tweeting about blog post at least once seems sensible. But the problem with Twitter is that it is a bit too real-time, and unless someone a) is following very few people, b) likes to scroll back through their history or c) is running clever notification tools, the chances are that your lone tweet will go unnoticed.

When I started, I thought I’d let the all important first blog post Tweet come automatically via Twitterfeed. That way I didn’t feel like I was blowing my own trumpet. After all, the machines were sending the Tweets, not me. For those that don’t know about it, you simply point Twitterfeed at an RSS feed and it does the shouting for you. Some people think any automatic Tweetbots (such as Twitterfeed) are a lame violation of the Twitter ethic. After all, if someone wants to know when I post something, they can subscribe to my RSS feed. I don’t agree with this – many people tend to use Twitter as their uber-aggregator at the moment. My RSS feed stats are sad proof of this.

So, with Twitterfeed rearing to go, I published my first post. After 45 mins of silence and feverishly waiting for my first blog visitor, I couldn’t take the suspense any longer. I manually tweeted my arrival on the blogosphere to my slavering hordes of followers. About an hour later, Twitterfeed finally kicked in and did its thing. That’s become my pattern now. When I publish a post, I tweet about it once myself as soon as I’m done, and the bot spews something about about an hour later. Job done. The world knows about it.

Or does it? I tend to publish my posts between 23:00 and 01:00 UK time. Most of my sensible followers are in bed, or at least not sad enough to be scrutinising their feeds. And as the Google Analytics map above shows, I’ve got 75 other countries who depend on my wisdom for their blog reading fix. So, as much as I hate the douche bags that repeatly tweet the same link to their blog posts, I’m becoming one of them. I normally unfollow the stuck record tweeters quite quickly. My current theory is to tweet my post again at about 10:00 UK time, and then again at about 15:00 UK time for my adoring fans in the US of A. Is that reasonable? Or is three manual tweets and one Bot tweet per blog post also flagrant douchebaggery?

Of course the answer to all of this is to harness the real power of Twitter – the retweet. These are waves of publicitly goodness that spread beyond your usual audiences into brave new worlds. Grovelling with a “Pls RT” at the end of a tweet is out of the question, though. So you have to desparately hope that the lovely people will retweet your plug because they really really like your article, or because they just feel sorry for you.

I think what this all means is that if your content is crap, no amount of self-promotion is going to get you anywhere. But create content that is interesting and it can spread across the interwebs like wildfire. Then you can sell out and put ads on your site, make lots of money and live in Bermuda.

In closing, I’d just like to get on to my knees and beg you all to tweet about this blog post. Retweet anything you see about it. Use the social networking links at the bottom of this post to Digg It, add it to Delicious, Technorati Rate it and everything else. Link to it from your esteemed sites. Send a mail to the EVERYONE mailing list in your company. Add it to your student’s coursework. If you are an editor of Slashdot, El Reg or Mashable, can we do a link exchange? Please. I’ve got a young son to feed. He wants his Daddy to make the big time. He wants to live in Bermuda. Tweet this. Please.

Pretty Please.

Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me,
“How good, how good does it feel to be free?”
And I answer them most mysteriously,
“Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?”
- BALLAD IN PLAIN D

So, as you can see we’ve moved. About two weeks ago I decided to start this blog. A few hours and a few beers later, I was up and running on the hosted WordPress.com site. Picked the theme that I disliked least from the 17 or so available, and sprouted my first post. A couple of days later people that I didn’t even know started reading it, which was all very exciting.

It was about that time I realised that although WordPress.com is easy, it also sucks the big one if you want flexibility. The things that annoyed me in a week included:

• I have to pay to change the CSS. Probably a good things as my CSS is terrible and I’ll just make things worse, but I demand the right to change my CSS anyway.
• I have to pay to remove adverts. Fair enough I guess. In a moment of purity, I paid this for a year. Which was $30 down the toilet in retrospect.
• The built in analytics are horrible. I’m not actually sure what they mean. Of the 3,500 “Page Views” I’ve been told I’ve had since this has been live, I suspect 3,450 were from me, and the rest from me mum. Not even close to Google Analytics on the functionality front.
• The themes are inflexible. For example, I wanted to show only excerpts on my home page, not full stories. No-can-do with the theme I chose, I’m afraid. And the one line PHP change was beyond my control.
• I started to discover lots of cool plugins written by clever people, but I couldn’t touch them.

So yesterday we moved everything. I hope the migration has gone okay. I’ve chosen a theme I prefer. I’ve lost one comment, and it seems all the nesting of the existing comments. I’m going to see if I can h4x0r those back. I think all the existing deep links to the old jonontech.wordpress.com domain will actually still work. And the RSS feed is fixed with the auto-discovery feed matching the advertised feed. Thanks a million to James for helping me with this, seeing I couldn’t CSS or PHP my way out of a brown paper bag.

We had a few issues. My current hosting provider, it turns out, can’t support multiple host headers to my Linux VM, so that attempt failed. Then I tried my free GoDaddy hosting that came with my domain registration. Turns out that my account was incompatible with WordPress because “WordPress can only run on a paid hosting service”. Bastards! So I’ve coughed up my few dollars a month and, in the end, it was all remarkably easy. I also had to buy another WordPress.Com add-on so I could set up the deep link redirect to my new domain. Ching ching. That’s now $45 to WordPress. About a year’s hosting cost.

To be honest, I do think WordPress.com is pretty good. But, if you want flexibility and like WordPress, don’t be lazy like yours truly. Make the effort to host the thing yourself. Biggest blogging mistake I ever made.