How much time do you spend on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites? It’s estimated that Robert Scoble spent over 2,555 hours on Friendfeed and Twitter in 2008, which is way more than a normal full-time job (2,000 hours).

Photo by Thomas Hawk

Robert has essentially worked a full-time job with overtime for these two companies, pro bono. And don’t kid yourself into thinking that he’s the only one either.

But here’s the kicker: people like Mr. Scoble spend a lot unhealthy amounts of time building up profiles on sites they don’t even own.

Those of us who have spent enough time around the web realize that sites and services come and go, and to trust that one will be around forever is absolutely bonkers. Friendfeed, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter… who knows what these sites will be in the next 10 years.

Sure, one could argue that Robert’s involvement on these 3rd party sites ultimately improves his personal brand. But if Friendfeed goes under, so does all those hours Robert spent on the site. Poof. Heck, Friendfeed was purchased by Facebook in August. Who knows what the future of Friendfeed?

The best way to safeguard yourself into losing everything you’ve worked so hard to create is to become your own platform, and not rely solely on a third-party to publish your content online.

Creating Your Platform

If you’re going to be a “creator” on the web, you can’t put your faith in a single platform like Facebook or Twitter. You’ve got to create your own.

I’m a huge fan of Twitter, and it’s an incredible tool to connect and gain an audience. When you put all your content’s eggs in one basket, you’re putting yourself at a huge risk. While I don’t think sites like Twitter or Facebook are going to go away any time soon (knock on wood), we don’t know how this Web thing will turn out. You may find in 20 years that all those hours you spent creating content on Tumblr or Twitter might just be lost for good.

But more importantly, when you’re trying to brand yourself, it doesn’t help when people only see you as a Twitter user first. You want YOUR brand first then the platform, not the other way around.

Be Everywhere, But Don’t Live Everywhere

Photo by Evil Erin

I can already hear the next question asked: “So how do you develop a following and gain attention without leveraging popular platforms like Twitter and Facebook?”

You’re right: you have to utilize them. You just can’t rely on them. It’s a fine line to walk.

Sure, you still need to be on other platforms. I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and a few other places. But I don’t live there. Those places only help my personal brand. They’re only tiny pieces of my digital identity. Sure, it would stink if one of those places shut down one day, but I’d still have my own personal platform.

But where I spend most of my time is working on things that are 100% my own. If Twitter is ever bought by Nazis, I’ll still have LifeDev. Or Web Jackalope.

Note: I have no idea if Nazis are interested in a Twitter purchase, but from what I hear everyone is giving Twitter offers these days. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Nazis haven’t put in a bid too. But I think we can all agree that if Twitter was run by Nazis, we would all spend a LOT less time there. And we’d really regret all the previous time we spent sending tweets.

It’s Not Just Me

Look at the really successful content producers on the web who have Twitter and Facebook accounts. Sure, they tweet often and keep their followers engaged. But you can bet your biscuits they spend twice as much time creating content for their blogs and own sites.

Here are a couple easy tips to creating a personal brand that’s invincible to the ever-changing winds of the Internet landscape.

Make it about YOU. If you’re going to use 3rd party services like Twitter, try and make the focal point of the pages you by adding a unique design that mirrors your brand in some way. I tried to do this as much as possible with both my personal Twitter profile and Web Jackalope’s Twitter profile with designs that were similar to the original sites.

Keep the balance. Be conscious of how much time you’re spending on third-party sites as opposed to creating your own content. Try making a 1:1 rule, where for every 20 minutes you spend on Twitter/Facebook, etc., you’re spending 20 minutes writing content on your own site.

Point back to you. Virtually all social media and social news sites allow you to create profiles where you can point to your site. Make sure all the 3rd-party services point to your own domain.

Own, Don’t Rent

Photo by turkeychik

When it comes to online presence, you want to be an owner, not a renter of your brand. Just like in the housing industry, there are plenty of reasons that renting is appealing. If you’re an online renter, you don’t have to worry about servers, design, or many other things. But at the end of the day, you still don’t own anything.

All the resources that you put into building profiles at social networking sites and gaining followers show for nothing if the platform crashes.

Be your own platform, and reap the benefits.

Less Clutter- Don’t worry about saving text files on your computer. Shoot, you don’t even need a word processor installed on your computer. I didn’t have one for a long time, and did fine without. They take up tons of space and memory, not to mention that they take more time to load than it takes my computer to restart. Seriously.

Easy to Organize- You don’t need to save your document in a physical location on your hard drive. Just assign it to a folder in G Docs and tuck it away. If you lose a document on your computer, you have to run a computer-wide search that a) takes forever and b) doesn’t always work.

Auto-Save- How many times has Word (or any other word processor, for that matter) unexpectedly froze? Or your computer crashed, and you lost all the files? This doesn’t happen with Google Docs. They’re automatically saved at timed intervals, so backups are frequent and never lost. In the event that (God forbid) Google’s servers crashed, they still have backups on other servers.

Aside from G Docs’ thoughtful built-in features, there’s still a lot of functionality under the hood that we haven’t tapped. In order to pull the most use from the online document editor from Google, you might explore these next features a little more.

Collaboration- The ability to share and edit documents in real time. I can’t tell you how many blog articles I’ve either written or helped edit with Google Docs. No more waiting sending the document by email and wiating on the other party to read/edit before sending it back. We’re talking real-time here. Saves hours (even days!) of waiting between revisions.

Revisions- Revisions are possibly one of the greatest tools for editing, especially when you’ve shared a document with another writer. Click on the Revisions tab and see who edited what and when. You can compare between versions, and check the differences. It’s also quite handy for the absent-minded writer who can’t remember why he changed something. Just go back to the revisions and refresh your memory.

Comments- You can insert comments as visual guides for you or anyone else looking at the document. Whenever I write an article I find it quite tedious to stop the flow and pull up another window and find the link for something. Totally counterproductive. Instead I insert a note that says “link here” and I know to come back and add it in the editing stage of writing.

Bookmarks- A very underused and misunderstood feature, the bookmark is quite useful for longer documents. If you want to link to another part of the document, just insert a bookmark, and then later on in the document you can link to that bookmark. It’s like an internal link. Very nifty, and especially handy if you’re needing a table of contents page.

Publish (blog or on Google)- If you want Google Docs to truly become your blogging command center, you should try publishing articles straight to your blog from Google Docs. All you need to do is head over to the “Publish” tab and set up your blog. If you want to add the post to a certain category on your blog, just label the article in G Docs with that same category. Poof! Your document has been published to your blog as well.

There are probably many other great ways to utilize Google Docs that I haven’t even touched on. Do you have any? Leave ‘em in the comments below!

Photo by bogdan.glushak

I give you the Facebook App Creator for Bloggers!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year and a half, you’ve probably heard of Facebook. It’s experienced rapid growth in the past few months, especially when they opened their doors for outside developers to build applications on top of the service.

These application creators quickly learned that leveraging the Facebook platform was a quick way to get a lot of people using their applications quickly, due to the viral nature of Facebook. They’ve created an excellent atmosphere for sharing, due to the fact that there is trust with who you’re sharing with. You personally know all of your contacts, so when they recommend something to you, you’re much likelier to check it out.

Well now any blogger can quickly and easily create an application that will republish your blog’s articles to your readers’ Facebook profile, giving them a way to easily track and share your blog’s articles among their friends (with that high level of trust). Plus, their friends see the application and install it, and the friends of those friends see the application and install it… well you get the idea. The potential is huge. Oh, and did I mention that you don’t have to know a lick of programming?

So if you’re interested, be sure to check it out.

Also, I’ll be giving away 10 lifetime “Pro Blogger” accounts to the first 10 commenters expressing interest below. If you’ve got any questions, suggestions or thoughts feel free to email blogfuse [at] gmail dot com. I’ll be happy to answer any questions.

While the post is full of tasty examples for bloggers,  I especially loved this part of the post:

One of the problems with the way people implement GTD is that they spend too much time fiddling with the system and their tools. You’re a busy person — you don’t have time to do all that. Pick a tool, and stick with it. Now spend your time actually writing your posts, and responding to comments, and making your blog better.

How many serial GTD’ers suffer from this problem, even aside from blogging?  When we realize that it’s not all about the system and actually start doing things, we’ve figured out the true meaning of GTD.

Because as of yet there hasn’t been the mythical app that controls every detail in our busy lives, we should focus more on becoming more productive with our existing tools. So in that spirit, I’ve decided to share a little trick that works pretty effectively with your online tasks. I’ve used this system mostly for blogging, but the uses are practically limitless. I call it the Browser Inbox.

The basic premise is this: use your browser’s tabs to track your things to do. If you have a modern browser like Firefox, you can have multiple tabs open within the browser. Each tab can be thought of as a task (or Next Action for the GTD Junkies), and once you’re done with the task, close the tab. It’s extremely simple, but it’s surprisingly effective.

Here’s an example.

Blogging

I’ll crack open my trusty Google Reader and start browsing feeds. If I see a story that’s compelling and a possible post topic, I’ll hit V and open the original page in a new tab. By the time I’m done reading, I may have 6 or 7 tabs open. I systematically go through and read each story, deciding whether each one is blog-worthy. If it is, I write the post. If not, I close the tab. Easy, right?

I love this approach because

• The tabs are physical reminders that I can’t ignore
• I’m not bringing any other tools or extra processes into the mix
• I have everything I need in one spot

Granted, this system has some obvious limitations (like all tools). The browser inbox only works if I know I’m going to be writing in the immediate future. Also, if Firefox crashes and the system can’t restore your session, or your browser is accidentally closed, you’re screwed.

But, at the same time, the simplicity forces you to quickly get through the “inbox” of your browser’s tabs quickly. The physical closing of each tab is pretty satisfying too, so that’s a subtle motivator as well.

So there you have it. The Browser Inbox: Gently forcing people to finish their online tasks quickly. A nice tagline, don’t you think? ;)

I’d love to hear any thoughts or suggestions on this system. Can anyone think of other uses for the BI?

[Update: You guys had some great suggestions! Be sure to check out the comment thread for incorporating the BI with offline tasks as well.]

How to Blog with “Voice” and Increase Community and Readership

I don’t know how many of you already read Problogger (probably loads), but if you don’t, check it out. Darren gives some invaluable tips for any blogger.

Granted, my blogging advice may not be that sound, but Darren’s is top notch ;)

In case you’re not familiar with Twitter, it’s basically a tiny blogging tool designed for quick, one or two sentence updates on what you’re doing.  As if we really care about what you’re really doing throughout the entire day.

But I’ve started to see some pretty cool implementations as of late with businesses becoming more transparent, so I needed to see if there was something I was missing.   It turns out I missed something big.

Earlier I had no idea what to “twit”(?) about on my area. I had the obligatory “I’m testing twitter” and “I don’t know if I like twitter”, etc. etc.  No real usage for that, eh?

Yet if you become more focused about what you’re “twittering”,  it actually helps serve as landmarks for your productivity. It helps you to become detailed and honest about what you’re really doing.

For example, if you take a look at what you’re working on at this exact moment and are truthful about it, you might realize that you’re not being as productive as you could be.  “I’m slacking off instead of filling out those forms”.  Remember, acknowledging that you have a problem is the first step to recovery ;)

There’s also something  about typing the words “I’m doing X right now” that really helps you stay focused and on that task.  For some reason it’s harder to lie to yourself when you’re typing it in published form.  (At least that’s how it is for me anyway.  I can’t speak for the rest of you compulsive liars ;-) )

So, if you’re just using Twitter to say “I’m petting my dog” or “now I’m burning the pot roast ‘cuz I was petting my dog”, then it’s definitely not going to give you anything in terms of productivity. But if you use Twitter to help you focus your sights on exactly what you’re doing (or should be doing) in an honest way, it can be a great little tool to keep you on task.

• Added Flickr Search support for image upload.
• Added support for CSS style/class for image upload.
• Added support for generic tag format (e.g. Ultimate Tag Warrior)
• Added GoDaddy.com’s Quick Blog to the preset list of blog type in Profile Creation Wizard.
• Added initial support for the new Google’s Blogger beta using the GData library.
• Added extra options for different type of posting entry data time.
• Added profile backup and restore to file capability.
• Added Paste Special option to Post window with capability to paste text as unformatted text or strip out MS Word formatting tags.

I still prefer Flock, but this is a mighty fine update for the blogging app. Great work guys!

Hat tip: DownloadSquad 

The same thing could be said about our culture’s obsession with lists. It’s all the rage to use lists to get your point across. Why? Because they grab attention, and everyone knows that grabbing attention is the way to get traffic.

So here we have a recipe for disaster: our already too fast-paced world sped up even more by RSS technology, causing people to write more condensed posts that get to the point. This trains our eyes to scan through the “extra” and get to the meat of the article.

Except the “extra” is what we’ve been missing.

We’ve trained ourselves to filter out the “fluff” and other subtleties in writing, losing those tiny crucial tidbits that aren’t in bullet points or a numbered list. Consequently, we’re only looking at 50-70% of an article if we’re lucky. And you can’t be an expert at something if you’re only reading 50-70% of an article and retain very little. So how do we fix this mindset that more, condensed information is better?

The Solution

Do you remember the days when people used to read books and newspapers for fun? Because information is free on the internet, people tend to want to read through the online medium. But that’s one of the reasons why books are still better tools: people read them more thoroughly. There is an investment attached to owning a book, so people tend to read them from start to finish. You don’t just toss it into your trash when you’re done either. It’s a physical reminder of what you’ve learned. And a more comprehensive understanding of a concept means you’re more of an expert than the guy who just reads bullet points and lists. You’ve taken the time to really understand what’s going on. Sure, it’s a slower approach, but it’s 10 times more effective in the long run.

So we could start treating our RSS subscription like our favorite book, by reading nearly everything inside of it.

But there lies a problem with this method: We’ve already got too many feeds as it is! This means we’ve got to start weeding through the mediocre feeds, and only keep only the cream of the crop: the ones that we know we’ll read every day.

Generally, the more info that comes in, the less you’ll really understand it. The Pareto Principle tells us that 80% of our information only comes from 20% of our feeds anyway. You could clean house on your RSS feeds and cut the ones that you don’t really read anyway. You want to keep the feeds that you read 90% of the time without scanning.

A feed like that for me is 43Folders. Merlin writes in such a way that you want to hang on to every word. It’s just that well written. You can tell every word is well thought out. And here’s the kicker: he does it in as few words as possible. I need to take some notes on that subject.

All of us bloggers should strive to write in such a way people want to hang on to our every word. Taking more time and care into each post is one way to make sure your posts are read completely. A great tactic is to let your posts marinate: coming back to them several times before you post. I’ve revisited this post four times today now. Hopefully it will be four times better than what it was when I finished it the first time ;)

The reason posts wind up at Digg, Delicious, or elsewhere isn’t because the authors made it easier to vote for them (it’s already easy). A post winds up at these sites because people respond to its content and quality.

The post goes on to say that none of Technorati’s top 10 blogs and only 2 of the 15 top diggs for the day it was written actually have these buttons. Very interesting.

From a guy that stresses post marination and an overall “quality first” mindset, this came as a pretty big blow to me. But he’s right. If I’m constantly worrying about tweaking things to help the reader, I’m overlooking the easiest way to please more readers: better content.

It’s times like these that I really love the internet and how much you can learn from other people.