The irrepressible Seth Godin has a new company called Squidoo that is in part setting out to provide a solution to the blogger's dillemma: how to improve the "what's this all about?" experience for first-time visitors.
I've tried to do that with a relatively comprehensive About page, which has an accompanying FAQ. Squidoo does a more comprehensive job with its Long Tail "lens". It combines my own pick of "start here" posts with a sampling of recent posts and comments.
It's certainly better looking than my About page, but is it more useful? More importantly, is this a better way to discover new blogs, by sampling them in a common format? I'll have to try it more before I can answer that.
Things like this certainly can't hurt. I'm also a fan of Jon Henke's style of categorized lists to give a starting point for newcomers as well as just a place for anyone seeking blogs they hadn't taken the time to read before.
But ultimately, the whole thing takes time to adapt to. I think the people who best find their footing are the ones who are willing to mess up or risk sounding silly, and figure out what they want to get out of blogging in a very specific sense that they can articulate.
Posted by: Adam | December 09, 2005 at 11:11 AM
I think the people who best find their footing are the ones who are willing to mess up or risk sounding silly
Posted by: Megan U | March 27, 2006 at 05:54 AM
backgammon
Posted by: Online Backgammon | May 08, 2006 at 08:28 PM
The Squidoo site certainly seems to be doing really well for me, even after the supposed "Google Slap." This'll only make it stronger in the long run, IMO.
Posted by: Shane | September 19, 2007 at 12:57 AM