Blogging For Myself

I was having an open discussion with saimatkong a few days back. And from it, I took back a valuable observation I made of myself. As vain as it sounds, now I know why my traffic isn’t that great.

The simple answers always want to make you slap yourself. And my answer to myself was, I don’t blog for people.

If I really wanted to increase my traffic, what I should blog about are:

• Tutorials
• Website examples (galleries)
• Downloads/Freebies

But I’m not doing all this. Yes, I’ve a category called website lessons or blog lessons. However, you’ll not find a tutorial on how to build a website or blog in there. I know I can write a series on it but I can’t feel the drive to do it.

What I blog about is my personal observations and opinions towards the website and online marketing ideas I’ve stumbled. I like blogging about topics which made me think and makes me want to share it with others.

While you read my articles, it’s like seeing and feeling what I felt when I was writing it.  This my blog’s true nature and the reason I’m blogging.

What is your blog’s true nature? Or, why are you blogging?

Become a Website Design Evangelist

The definition of an evangelist:

a person marked by evangelical enthusiasm for or support of any cause.

Source: Dictionary.com

The cause which I support for awhile now is none other than web standards. The ideal of creating websites in compliance to usability and accessibility.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is only a guideline of best practices. I remember a W3C member coming down to deliver a topic on accessibility at the Malaysia Web Accessibility Conference and she reminded us about this.

When web standards caught wind in Malaysia, everyone had sworn to get their websites w3c compliant, even myself. If your website didn’t bear the w3c stamp, it’s like you were still a demon living in hell. Well, this is no longer the case. Oh, how much we’ve grown.

Today, I’m still a website design evangelist. And I preach good usability in website design. I take it as my responsibility to not only come up with visual aesthetics, but to create a visual flow in the website. If there’s too much content, which should be given priority?

If there’s too little content, how can design still help a client’s website look and feel professional? Design is a tool to be used by website designers to lead the visitors in the website. Never forget that.

As an evangelist, I’ve constantly done my best to educate all my friends and clients who want to discuss about a website. They would either listen or ignore what I’ve said but it’s understandable. Some prefer to have it their way, no matter what.

Are you an evangelist too?

A Day Without Twitter

Like how our mobile phones have become part of our daily life, Twitter has become a part of mine. A day without Twitter or less than 5 logins to it feels as if I’ve lost a connection in my life. It’s as if I’ve been disconnected from the world of:

Website design

What are the cool websites colleagues and friends of mine are talking about? I can’t share with them the websites which I’ve found inspiring and aspiring. No longer can I reach out to more likely designers interested in website design to expand their horizons of what really makes a good website design.

Internet development

What’s new? What’s hip? Who bought whom? My main resources for this is currently Mashable and I rarely visit their website. Instead, I lazily follow them on Twitter for the juicy updates.

Marketing

If there’s one thing I love about marketing is it comes with a twist. At least, that’s what I personally feel marketing needs in every idea we want to push into people’s minds.

But yes, I need my dose of viral guerilla marketing tactics damnit!

Friends

Indeed, Twitter isn’t an instant messenger (IM) but it’s still a communication platform nonetheless. If your car broke down or if you got stuck in the house, you’d either update your Twitter or Facebook. That’s before you think about calling the police. Seriously, some girls updated their Facebook first when trapped in storm drain then dialing for help.

I guess that’s how great technology manifests in our fast-moving life now. Even if we wanted a couple more seconds, we don’t have the luxury as everything and everyone wants to stay connected.

So, how has your day without Twitter been?

Malaysia Comic Fiesta and Cosplay 2009

The month of December for me was filled with events I wanted to attend. Like Rock The World and Comic Fiesta which both incidentally clashed with one another. Plus, both also clashed with my recent holiday to China.

In the end, I’m now back from China but would love to share with my readers photos of the Comic Fiesta from other official media bloggers; Valho and Hong.

The cosplay spirit in Malaysia is indeed alive and kicking in anime lovers. I can’t say much for the manga side as the photos were mostly of the intricate costumes self-created by their cosplayers.

Before I leave you, here’s a thought to ponder. Cosplayers can spend upto more than RM1000 on their costume.

Design Inspiration or Plagiarism

Smashpop (Jason) has been sharing with his friends about how another blogger had violated him. Artistically, that is. Well, I’m not here to rant on how this blogger copied that blogger.

Instead, I’d like to discuss about how some who were most likely inspired by another source, coincidentally end up designing their blog too similar to the original.

This is what the original looks like:

And, this is what the inspiration resulted in:

Sometimes our intentions aren’t bad. And sometimes, it’s when realizations come from our friends or others that reach us then only we’d realize them. So given the benefit of the doubt, this blogger may have been over inspired.

There was an article I read before on how you can be inspired but be not over inspired. It’s a really simple technique by identifying what is it exactly which inspired you. Was it the detail? Was it the color? Was it the texture?

After you’ve identified this, then you store it either in memory or as a reference in your personal space.

It’s the easiest (and laziest) line to say, “I like everything”, but it’s more fruitful and helpful to be able to identify what is it you really like.

What inspires you most about your own blog design?

P.S.: Jason, if you read this, the guy looks like he wants to become you.