April 11, 2003

SALON BLOGGERS SPEAK OUT: USER SURVEY RESULTS A couple of weeks ago, I posted, and e-mailed to about fifty Salon bloggers, a six-question survey asking Salon/Radio users for their opinions on the product, and on the business of blogging in general. I received a dozen responses. That's probably not enough to be representative, but the responses were full of wonderful advice for newbie and sophomore bloggers. They also contained some strong messages and creative ideas for both Salon and Radio Userland. A heartfelt 'thank you' to those who responded. Here is what you said (I've posted this in 6 pieces to allow readers to post individual Comments on each of the 6 questions): Q1 How do you publicize your blog? Most respondents do little or nothing, but are hungry for ideas on this subject. Most common method is to cruise Recently Updated Salon blogs and post comments to updated blogs, with your blog's URL at the bottom, and sometimes with a link to one of your recent posts. Several of you have other websites and link to your blog from them. Several of you send e-mails, with your blog's URL, to blog authors you like, with compliments about their blogs and/or questions about your own blog. Several of you include your blog URL in your signature on every e-mail you send. Several of you update your blog as often as possible, especially during prime early-morning and late-afternoon hours, to get to the top of the Recently Updated lists. Several of you talk about, or blogroll, others' blogs on your own, to get on their Referrer's list and hence seduce them to visit your site. A few of you synthesize other bloggers' work by either summarizing or anthologizing (with attribution of course) what others have been saying (e.g. critiques, distillations, 'best posts of the week' lists). A few of you have joined webrings and other blogger affinity groups. A few of you buy ads on sites like Daypop and Metafilter. A few of you post occasionally on hot topics with keywords that will either get you traffic from Google or pique readers' intellectual or prurient interest. 11:00:24 AM   comment []

Q2 What do you like/dislike about the existing Salon/Radio features? Themes: About half of you are satisfied, half want more (or more interesting) themes to be made available. Most want Radio to make it easier and more intuitive to change themes or customize your own theme. Templates: Most of you find customizing the templates difficult and nerve-wracking for the non-HTML-savvy. Most said the distinction between the Home and Main template is confusing, and the use of macros is baffling to non-techies. Some said there should be an automatic backup when a user changes a template, and that Radio should offer non-techies a step-by-step metaprocess or table-driven process for changing templates so you don't need to dip into HTML. Blogroll/Navigation Links: Most of you also find this process cumbersome, nerve-wracking and inflexible. Some said there should be an automatic backup when a user changes a navigation link, and that Radio should offer non-techies a step-by-step metaprocess or table-driven process for changing navigation links so you don't need to dip into HTML. Several of you use Blogrolling tools to maintain navigation links. A few of you would like your RSS subscription feeds to be listed alongside, and maintained the same way as, your blogroll. Built-in News Aggregator: A few use this and really like it, a few prefer other aggregation tools like NewzCrawler, NetNewsFile or NewsForFree. Most don't use this much-touted feature at all, finding the choice of feeds too limited and preferring the flexibility of browsing what and when you want. Archiving: Most of you think this is OK. Several want the archive display to be the same period (usually 7 days) as the home page display (with a 'next/previous' button), rather than just one day at a time. Categories: Most of you find this feature poorly explained and documented and unintuitive, so you don't use it at all. Once you create categories, it becomes very confusing when you're working on templates and navigation links to figure out which category's templates and links you're changing. Some feel that categories, if overused, unduly complicate blog navigation. Some feel strongly that categories should not appear on the Recently Updated list, only the user's 'main' blog. Commenting: (See also Q3 below on editing and deleting comments.) Most of you are satisfied with this, when it's working. Several of you want more, easier HTML capability in Comments, and an ability to Preview comments before they are Posted. Several want a Notification feature, so you don't have to browse your own blog to find and review comments, and some would like to be able to side-bar Most Recent Comments. WYSIWYG Text Editor: Mac and Mozilla/Netscape users can't use this, and several others find it limiting (not enough HTML built-in, working area too small, special characters are misrendered). Bottom line: Only a minority use it. Outlining: The very few who have tried to use this find the documentation too technical. Support: All but one of you find it inadequate: too little, too late, poorly laid out, impersonal, sporadic, 'minimal', 'pathetic'. Several said if the documentation was improved and the product made easier to use, much less support would be needed. The one supporter said that well-articulated problems posted to the Radio discussion board were answered quickly and competently, though it wasn't clear if the helper was actually with Radio Userland or not. 10:59:07 AM   comment []

Q3 What additional functionality is needed in Salon/Radio? Mirroring: Few of you want this feature (ability to simultaneously post to two blogs in different domains), and some said it can be done with categories already, though the process is awkward. Search Functionality: Most of you want this added, saying that adding a Google search bar is hard to do and not well explained, and sometimes produces inaccurate results. Also, Google often brings people to our blog URL or our Day URL, when they should bring people to the specific Item URL with the permalink. As a result, visitors from Google often leave without finding what they were looking for. Can't Google fix this? Trackback: The few of you that understand what this feature is, really want it. Access Restriction: Few of you want to be able to restrict access to your blog or to selected pages of it. Headlining: Almost all of you want this feature. This would allow us to post just the title, or the title and first paragraph, or the title and synopsis (abstract) of longer posts, with a link to the full text. It would allow more posts to be visible on the home page without scrolling down, and would allow more posts to be maintained on the home page without unduly slowing down page loading. Editing & Deleting Comments: All but one of you want this feature, and promise you would use it with discretion (remove spam, remove duplicate comments, fix HTML errors). Some also want the ability to ban/block/report abusive commenters. Separate Templates for Each Category: This feature actually exists, but most category lovers either don't know about it or can't figure out the necessary 'hand-tooling' to do it. Some warn that too many different looks for different categories make your blog 'noisy'. A few would like the ability to remove categorized posts from the 'main' archive (they would only appear in the category archive). Archive Table of Contents: Almost all of you would like this feature added. Other Functions: Individuals asked for these features: Faster page loading, easier photo posting, ability to customize the comment template, ability to use a different template for archives, a sortable list (alpha, by latest update, by date started) of all Salon blogs, the ability to change story names, better documentation, make Radio more Web-based like Xanga so you can access/post from anywhere, ability to edit RSS feed text when posting from news aggregator. 10:58:09 AM   comment []

Q4 How do you decide what to read and what to blogroll? Most of you decide what to read by word of mouth referrals from other bloggers you read daily. Most have a fixed list of daily 'must reads', both blogs and news resources. Most browse their daily Referrer lists and read blogs that have referred to them. Some also check other referrer lists such as Technorati, which list all sites that have ever referred to your blog. About half say they check URLs of Commenters to their blogs if they haven't seen them before. Almost half of you don't blogroll. Those that do tend to have a system e.g. bookmark a blog the first time they come across something interesting in it, blogroll it the second. Most believe in reciprocal blogrolling (if you blogroll me, I'll blogroll you). 10:56:49 AM   comment []

Q5 What's your advice to newbie bloggers? Ask other bloggers, not Userland, when you need technical help. Think about what your 'niche' is going to be before you start posting. Persevere. Be patient. Write well. Say something unique. Assess objectively, and strive to continuously improve, your blog. Don't be afraid to ask questions of other Salon bloggers, that's what the community is for. Study other blogs; learn from and emulate what they do well. Read a lot, write a lot, use a spell-checker. Post often. Promote your blog aggressively. Re-evaluate why you're blogging from time to time, and adjust your style and subject matter accordingly. Be prepared to be surprised at what others find good and interesting. 10:55:48 AM   comment []

Q6 How do you gauge the success of your blog? Most popular answers, in declining order of importance: personal satisfaction, compliments received from others, having fun, buzz (number of hits and ranking), opinions from people I know, number of new visitors, consistency of my writing, number of people who've blogrolled me without my asking, therapeutic value received from blogging. Several of you commented on how easy it is to 'cheat' in number of hits, and how number of hits can sometimes be misleading for other reasons. A few suggested that for that reason the right-hand (number of hits since inception) Salon Ranking column list should be eliminated, or at least cut back to latest-30-days ranking. A few people said the Salon 'community' really hadn't gelled and that we as a group need to do more things proactively to welcome and include fellow 'sloggers', and make Salon blogs a real community. 10:54:51 AM   comment []

© Copyright 2003 Dave Pollard. Last update: 06/05/2003; 7:46:05 AM.