7 April 2010
You must know, I try to convince every talented person I meet to start blogging. During those somewhat awkward conversations, a lot of those folks ditch the idea of blogging, ‘because they don’t have the time’. Thanks to Seth Godin, I’ve got a new argument to use on those non-bloggers.
Godin even takes it a step further. In reply to a question from the audience at a conference in Belgium, the marketing guru urged the crowd to blog everyday. Why? Because daily blogging speeds things up. Yes, you’ve read it right, writing everyday saves you time.
Godin has been writing his ideas and thoughts down on a daily basis for a couple of years now. He noticed that whenever he wrote something down, it puts him on a hook. Since the idea is online, for everyone to read, he should live up to it. ,,The act of writing is what moves things forward”, according to Godin.
I’ve experienced the very same. At the beginning of 2010, I jotted down my five (ridiculous) goals for the year to come. Friends and foes keep reminding me of them, which keeps me focused.
Unlike Godin, I didn’t recognize this as a pattern. He obviously did and eloquently shared it with the Belgian audience. Maybe that’s because of his daily blogging habit…
http://www.vimeo.com/10677881
(via @erwblo)
7 February 2010
,,Go kill more trees”, my friend Edial cheerfully replied when I told him about my upcoming blog book. ,,While you’re writing articles for the newspaper, don’t forget your personal blog”, Erwin Blom warned me on Twitter. Are you a journalist or a blogger, people ask me frequently. Hell, I don’t know guys. I just publish. And for every story, I pick the most suitable medium.
Twitter piece in NRC weekly magazine
This week, the Saturday edition of NRC Handelsblad printed a story I wrote about Twitter. Continue reading →
29 December 2009
It’s the end of the year. The week everybody makes lists. I figured it would be a good idea to make a list of my personal goals for 2010. So I can live up to them. So that I have to live up to them (since you’ve read them).
Photo Jodi Cobb
If you’re planning on making a list like this as well, please share it in the comments. I’d love to read what kind of exciting stuff you, dear reader, are up to this year. Continue reading →
20 December 2009
BKB, one of Holland’s most successful campaigning agencies, organizes a talent academy every year. It consists of two study trips and ten meetings with well-known politicians, campaigners, and journalists. I’m participating the 2009-2010 edition and have learned quite a lot already. Better yet, I’ve found a couple of new friends. One of them, Justus Bruns, told me a great plan a couple of weeks ago. We were having apple pie and beer when he said: ,,I want to replace all advertising on Times Square with art.” Well, I asked him, what’s stopping you?
Sure, it’s a ridiculous idea. Too ambitious, not realistic at all. How’s a twenty-something from a small Dutch city going to take over New York’s most famous square? Continue reading →
15 December 2009
Newsflash: in the endless discussions about the future of journalism, most people are asking the wrong question: ,,What does the reader want?” What follows are assumptions about the behavior of the new news consumer. ,,He doesn’t want to pay for news”, ,,He’s only going to read from epaper”, etc etc.
Well, two things:
- Assumption is the mother of all f*ckups
- The reader has NO clue what he wants
Like Steve Jobs said: ,,If I asked consumers what they wanted, Apple would’ve never made the iPod.” Same goes for news. Journalists are the experts. They know what it takes to cover current affairs. They know how to write an essay. In short: they know their profession.
So now it’s time for them to start thinking about how they should present their news stories. Continue reading →
4 December 2009
Michał Walusza is a Polish student and is currently working on a Master thesis about opinion leaders in virtual communities. He emailed me with a question: ,,How to become an online opinion leader?” Here’s my two cents.
In the early days of Web 2.0, most informal leaders in virtual communities were geeks. Chaps like Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington. They made the hypes, determined the agenda. But lately, they’ve become less influential. Why is that, you ask? Well, because the opinion leaders from the mass media have found their way to Twitter and Facebook. They’ve gained thousands of online followers in a couple of months.
Let’s have a look at the Twitter Top 100 for example. In the early days, geek visionaries like Pete Cashmore, Guy Kawasaki, Chris Sacca, and Leo LaPorte dominated the list. But when you browse to the Top 100 now, this is what you’ll see:
Twitter Top 100 on Twittercounter.com
The ‘real life’ celebrities have taken over. Continue reading →
27 November 2009
Newspapers are dying – you probably know that by now. Online news is their hope, but there’s no business model (yet). We can be sure of thing though: at some point, somebody has to pay for quality news. It doesn’t really matter those who are paying are readers or advertisers. What matters, is that quality newspapers can show their audience that their news is worth paying for.
Every expert journalist is a rock star. Just like Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend. Photo: Anne Helmond
When The Times announced that they’d start charging for online news, its editor indicated the costs of quality journalism. He said it had cost the Times €1.6m ($2.4m) to run a Baghdad bureau for the duration of the Iraq war and €11,000 ($16,363.33) to send a correspondent to report on violence in northern Sri Lanka.
Whether it’s dumb idea of The Times or not, the editor got one thing right. Continue reading →
Blog Your Bar Stories to Get Comments
The first weeks of blogging generally suck, because of a lack of attention. I want to help you getting over those weeks and get comments from your visitors instantly. Next to writing this blogging crash course, I’ll also give tips in separate posts like this one. And always with an example.
Let’s start with inspiration for stories. How do you write articles that people find interesting? The answer is actually quite simple: tell the stories you used to tell in bars while having drinks with friends. Those are your best ones.
That’s exactly what my buddy Renato Valdés Olmos did. Continue reading →