home about photos slide shows videos magicsauce twitter other blogs books contact









If You Love To Write

Cool Social Media Tools

Analyst Blogs

Around The World

On Spirit & Philosophy

On Culture & Food

On Marketing & PR

On Economics and More

On Fashion

All Things Green

Dance Links

Books: Life

Books: Novels

Website Links

FAVORITE QUOTES

  • Only Those Who See the Invisible, Can Do The Impossible
  • The Age of your Heart is the Age of what you Love - Marcel Prévost
  • Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I'll understand.
  • When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one opening before us. -Helen Keller
  • The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity. -Leo Tolstoy
  • Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets. -Paul Tournier
  • They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. -Carl W. Buechner
  • Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • The foolish reject what they see, the wise reject what they think
  • Imagination is more important than knowledge - Albert Einstein
  • When you realize nothing is lacking, the whole world belongs to you - Lao-tzu
  • The world surrenders to a quiet mind
  • It is a funny thing about life: If you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it - Somerset Maugham
  • "At the moment of commitment, the universe conspires to assist you." Goethe


« Enter Project Runway | Main | Heather & Jason Dialog: Take 2 »

March 15, 2006

Armstrong & Kottke Chat

A casual fireside chat with Jason Kottke and Heather Armstrong on Day 2 of SXSW allows us to see more character and personality than I've experienced with either of them one-on-one. They both brought out an interesting playful side of each other.

Heatherandjasonkeynote

Heather, who is more about the story and less about the 'links,' asks Jason whether posting more frequently has had an impact on his traffic. For Jason, it does. For Jason, links still matter. After a Slashdot link and one other blog (I think Gawker), he added 10,000 new readers per day. But that's only because he already had a high ranking and following before the links.

While I get very few links from other sites, when high volume sites such as Scoble, Winer, Instapundit and Doc have linked to me, it hasn't really affected my traffic over the long haul.

Then again, traveling in a geek community means you either have to write really compelling content for geeks or something so different and unique that one of your communities (professional or personal) yearns to come back for more. I don't really offer either, nor have the time to, so this could largely be the reason why. Yet, I wish I had more 'off-the-clock' time to write about things I'm truly passionate about. And yes, more regularly.

People come to Heather's site for the 'story,' not the links, nor for short posts. Jason pipes in, "Short posts bring new people to your site; the loyal readers who like your style and what you have to say will read your longer posts...." The longer posts in my opinion, are where the 'true voice' and personality of the writer has a chance of shining. Or not.

Jasonandheatherkeynote

Heather had two fabulous lines, both worth recapturing. When she was asked about writing more frequent posts, she said, "I actually need to take the time to 'live my content' to actually be able to write about it." Here here Dooce.

It's not that different than the acting teacher in high school sending the student off with words of wisdom he or she needs to hear before they embark on their journey.....'go live your dreams, travel the world, fall in love, fall out of love, experience color, taste the unknown.' I personally never had a teacher who said that, but I did have a grandmother who did.

Her second line was in response to 'how she feels about people who have issues with her posting ads on her site." "Their issues are their issues and its something they'll have to come to terms with, not us. It's working for us."

Why shouldn't she be paid for writing an online daily 'log' that people want to read on a regular basis? If this takes a huge chunk of her day to do, where's the time for a 'real day job?' And how is this different from a columnist who gets paid to write? Isn't she just providing a service like a newspaper columnist gave to consumers 100 years ago and still does today? Somewhere on that newspaper page is an ad.

Frankly, I think its fabulous that she has decided to opt for balance in her life, a lifestyle that allows her to really nuture her family life and find a way to get paid for it through her blog. Purists may say she's selling out. I say she's being smart.

Heather asks Jason, "Are you a friend to everyone or a critic?" He realizes after a moment that he's more likely the 'critic,' but adds that 'you're not always a friend if you're supportive all the time.' Both feel a responsibility about what they say and about who given the growing numbers of readers of their sites.

Jasonkottkekeynote

Jason adds, "If I discover something interesting or a new site that may only have 30 people a day reading it, I may not link to it. Linking to it could bring their site into the limelight and give them a level of visibility they may not necessarily want. It may not be their intent to have 30,000 readers. Maybe they want their site to be private, read only by a few family members and friends."

They both talk about comments and seem to agree on the pros and cons. Heather has learned to ignore the negativity and just 'get over it,' otherwise it will consume too much of her day and potentially bring some of that negative energy into her family life.

"Why go there? It's their issues, and I have to just let it go. People get very nasty and very personal, making judgments on who you are as a person and who you are as a mother." People have made negative comments about her daughter and her dog. We even learn that there's a blog dedicated to people who actually hate Heather. So American, I'm thinking. So pathetic.

Jason doesn't have any interest in building a 'community through comments' around his site. "It takes too much time."

He announces that he's getting married in two weeks and frankly, I applaud him for making a decision to spend more time with a 'real person' he cares about and loves than online responding to comments well into the night from people he has never met. He says that he is, however, interested in promoting focused conversations around important topics he cares about.

Tag: Austin Tag: SXSW Tag: SXSW 2006 Tag: Heather Armstrong Tag: Jason Kottke

March 15, 2006 in Conference Highlights, Entertainment/Media, Events, On Technology | Permalink

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451c79e69e200d8345bacd969e2

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Armstrong & Kottke Chat:

» On the road again... from Betsy Devine: Funny Ha-Ha or Funny Peculiar?
Today, my fingers longed to be typing up blogposts about the people and ideas and adventures of SXSW. [Read More]

Tracked on Mar 15, 2006 7:03:42 PM

Comments

It wasn't the high school drama teacher, it was the method acting coach who saw the young 18 year old student struggle to conjure real emotions for experiences he'd never had.

It was nice meeting you, Rene. Let's keep in touch!

Posted by: Steve Ganz | Mar 15, 2006 10:13:35 PM

Steve - ah yes. That was it. But ya know, it really was my grandmother who sent me out there and my grandfather who lit the match. HA.

Renee

Posted by: Renee Blodgett | Mar 16, 2006 1:33:35 AM

Post a comment


PARTNERS

KUDOS

Recent Posts

  • Wisdom from Michael Pollan
  • Reflecting on Tony Hsieh's Death
  • The Coronavirus: A Spiritual Perspective!
  • Zen 2.0 Brings Connectedness & Compassion to Kamakura Japan
  • IONS Annual Conference Brings Together Scientists & Spiritual Seekers Under One Roof
  • On Discipline & the Art of Courage
  • Simplifying Your Life Connects you to Your Life Purpose
  • Gratitude & Remembering America's Core Values Will Set Us Free
  • In Honor of International Women's Day
  • Proposed Cut of Planned Parenthood Funding by New Administration

Forbes Top 50





Favorite Blog Posts

Conferences & Events

    2012 Archives

    January 2012

    February 2012

    March 2012

    April 2012

    May 2012

    June 2012

    July 2012

    August 2012

    September 2012
    October 2012
    November 2012

    December 2012


    All Archives
Featured on BlogHer.com

Categories

  • America The Free
  • Arts & Creative Stuff
  • Belize
  • Books
  • Client Announcements
  • Client Media Kudos
  • Conference Highlights
  • Current Affairs
  • Entertainment/Media
  • Europe
  • Events
  • Fiji
  • Holidays
  • Humor
  • In the News
  • Israel
  • Magic Sauce Media
  • Music
  • New England
  • New York
  • On Africa
  • On Australia
  • On Being Green
  • On Blogging
  • On Branding
  • On China
  • On Costa Rica
  • On Dance
  • On East Africa
  • On Education
  • On Fashion
  • On Fiji
  • On Food & Wine
  • On France
  • On Geo-Location
  • On Germany
  • On Guatemala
  • On Health
  • On India
  • On Innovation
  • On Italy
  • On Japan
  • On Journalism
  • On Mobile & Wireless
  • On Money
  • On Nature
  • On People & Life
  • On Poems, Literature & Stuff
  • On Politics
  • On Robotics
  • On RSS
  • On Science
  • On Search
  • On Social CRM
  • On South Africa
  • On Spain
  • On Spirituality
  • On Technology
  • On the Future
  • On Video
  • On VoIP
  • On Women
  • Photography
  • PR & Marketing
  • Reflections
  • Religion
  • San Francisco
  • Science
  • Social Gigs & Parties
  • Social Media
  • South America
  • Sports
  • Travel
  • TravelingGeeks
  • United Kingdom
  • Videos
  • WBTW
  • Web 2.0
  • Web/Tech
  • Weblogs

Subscribe


  • Add to Pageflakes

  • Add to Google

  • Add to Netvibes

  • Subscribe with Bloglines

  • Subscribe in NewsGator Online

  • Add to My! Yahoo

  • FeedBurner



Add me to your TypePad People list

Enter your Email


Powered by FeedBlitz

Copyright 1999-2022 Renee Blodgett