"Wanna Date? "
Now that I got your attention…
Recently, the term "blog whore" has come to my attention. As I understand it, the term (and its many transmutations): "blog whore", "blog whoring", etc. means people who are shamelessly sending Personal Messages (PMs) to their friends about a story they just posted. I resent this term.
Most of the people on OS claim to be writers; most of you are indeed professional writers: authors, poets, song writers, screen writers, journalists, Public Relations writers, even ad copywriters.
In the real world, writers of all stripes, who take their work seriously (especially comedy writers) form writer’s groups in which they let their colleagues read what they have written.
Successful writer's groups are the ones in which the writers are like-minded or they write in the same genres. In a rather loose manner, I use the OS Favorites/Friends list as a writer's group. This means that if you are on my Favorites list it is because I enjoy your posts and look forward to your next post. And from reading your comments on my posts I have concluded that you like my posts too.
Which is why, I can't understand why a lot of you seem offended when you receive PMs announcing your friends' recent posts. Some OS bloggers even put other bloggers' PMs in their Spam folder. Would you do that to someone in your writing group?
I am well aware that the OS editors have built some mechanisms to announce everyone’s recent posts. On the Home Page the editor’s have placed the following tabs to make it easy for us to view recent posts: Cover, Editor Picks, Popularity and Most Recent. On the Home Page’s left-hand column there is an Activity Feed to so we can see who has blogged, commented, or rated. The right-hand column has two sections: Most Viewed and New Posts. They have even placed a column on our own blog page to let us know our friends have posted something new.
However, these sections are constantly being updated. So your recent post might get bumped within seconds of being promoted. Of course, if you are interested in one of your friends' recent posts, you can easily check out their blog. However, you might still miss their recent post.
I am not promoting writer's groups. What I am advocating is a sane way to promote our blogs. For example, I may post something that I think Blogger-X might enjoy. I simply send this blogger a PM asking him to take a look. There is nothing wrong with this. It is similar to announcing to my coworkers, “Hey, check out my new cell phone. It brews coffee.” Those interested will take a look.
In an effort to simplify the PM process, I propose the following:
- Announce to your OS buddies a recent post, simply by writing in the Subject Line: "Posted: [Title of Post]". If your title is very long, just the first three words will do.
- Save your friends time by NOT placing anything in the Message Section. This way they won’t have to open your PM. Most of us are not publishers so your PM does not have to be the length of a query letter. If you need to add more info to the PM write this in the Subject Line: "Posted: [Title of Post] More". But make the message short. Too much info and I may not need to read your post. Besides, if you have a strong title they won't need to know more.
- Add "Linked" to the Subject Line and provide a link in the message section . For example: "Posted: Title Linked".
I don’t recommend you PM all your Friends with all your posts just PM the posts you think will interest them.
Of course you do not have to follow these rules. In fact you can ignore, change, add, or delete them to suit your needs. However, if you want to send me a PM of your latest post, please follow them.
So let’s put those hookers out of work by not being afraid to say, "Look at what I just posted!"
POE
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© Trudge164, 2009
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Comments
JL Davis, you're right the system is not perfect and there is no way for us to stop someone who hates us from being on their list. I guess, I'm too much of a Pollyanna.
Natalie B., I'll PM you to remind you to send PM reminders about your post. lol
All, thanks 4 da comments & thumbs.
Monsieur, true. One cannot be expected to reply to all, but I manage to get to them one blog at a time.
JustJuli, yeah it took me a while to figure that one out too.
Thank you one and all!
If someone is announcing their own new post I don't open the body of the message, I go back to the inbox and click on their name and there should be their most recent post. For some reason making a link live in messages doesn't seem to work. I prefer to just click rather than paste, cut, paste.
I'm happy to get them and sometimes it might be days before I get to reading it, but at least I have a note of it.
Ty
People just need a reason to complain. It's not like you're calling their cell phone, for Pete's sake. It's just a PM. They can ignore it if they want to. And I appreciate the reminders because I don't always get to the new posts from my favorites due to the fact that it is so easy to get distracted by all the other new posts out there.
Someone even called these blog-whoring PMs spam, which they are most definitely not. I could go into a long and boring discussion as to why they are not SPAM, but trust me, they are not SPAM! Unless it is from Captain Parrotdead, in which case it may contain pornography, in which case it is SPAM. But otherwise, no. ;)
But also, I want my posts to get seen by some means that does not require me to advertise it. (Or pimp it if you want a street metaphor—whoring is probably the wrong word.) I just want to do writing and let the mechanism work. But it's hard to compete with people who use this mechanism. It's a bit like steroids. The reason to forbid it isn't that you want to control someone making a personal choice, it's that once they decide to do it, if you want to compete, you're pretty much forced. And so the effect on others is not always voluntary.
But you are right, sometimes I like to see how well my work will do on its own merits. That is why I don't PM all of the people all of the time and sometimes I don't PM at all.
As to your steroids metaphor, if someone wants to jack up their muscles so they can hit a little ball and make their balls smaller than marbles that's their problem. The sad part is most atheletes don't spike the juice to beat records, most spike just o stay in the game.
Thanks for dropping by.
But you said contusion. A friend of mine got seriously head injured drunk driving. So, you were right.
You know I love you.
PM away, anyone who wants me to come over.
I send "notices" when I post a new thread. The notice has the name of the post, then link to the post, and one or two lines telling whether I think the post is urgent, or any other thing I think will help the reader decide to read it or not.
All of my "favorites" are also "friends", mutual friends, so if they don't want to receive my notices they can tell me and I will drop them from my list. No problem. If they don't want to read my stuff then they get dropped. So far two or three have been dropped and two of those came back and wanted to be mutual friends again. Fine with me either way.
I tried the new drop down lists to tell me what my friend have recently posted. It does a great job of that. But on any given day there are at least 30 new posts by my friends/favorites. No way I can read all of those and have an actual life outside of OS. I try but it can't work.
So I set priorities and will FIRST read the posts of those who took the time to send me a notice, like you did on this one. I don't care if they sent a mass mailing or just a personal one to one PM. Both get highest priority.
And finally, I think people need to lighten up. It takes one click of a mouse to dump a PM into oblivion. Some people cry and complain about all the clutter in their inboxes. I wish those folks could remember how it felt to have nothing in your in box. I remember my first two months here when I was lucky to get a PM a day.
Thanks,
Monte
Pawed!
Ty.
SirenitaLake, Your first step in getting organized is to drop everything and
Read my blog and no one elses’s. lol
DeliaBlack, you can PM me whenever you want. I enjoy your posts.
JLee Davis, apology accepted, but in all honesty you did not sound belligerent
Monte, I’m glad we are on the same plane. I too remember my first lonely weeks on OS when no one would PM me.
Mistercomedy, you are not being needy, well maybe, like a little pregnant. lol Like me, I think you just want to know what’s happening with your peeps.