Fame, Glory, Sex and Money through Blogging: what it takes to beat the squirrel babies

Jedi Squirrels unite! 

Fame. Glory. Sex. Money. You want it all. You want it now.

And you want to get it by blogging.

I hear you, baby. I know how you feel. I’m one of you.

I’m about to give you some bad news

The Fame? That comes fast, as long as you define “fame” as “slightly known, in that they can kindasorta recognize my header but have no idea what I look like way, to people who already read blogs.” This is a smaller group than you currently imagine, and even your late-night entreaties of the retired longshoremen on the rail at your local watering hole are not likely to change it on a measurable scale.

If you want to be famous to politicians’ research staffers, WoW-playing slackers, or sysadmins, however, you’ve got it made.

The Glory? See above, plus your mother will be proud of you once you spend three consecutive holidays explaining to her what blogging is and showing her how to put YOUR blog in HER email signature. Unless you’re a porn blogger, and then we don’t want to know about your relationship with your mother.

The Sex? You mean with other people? What would I know about that? Ask the porn bloggers if you must.

The Money?Ah, the money. Now we come to it; you figured that if you stuck Adsense on your cat blog that you could just sit back and watch the millions roll in, didn’t you? You’ve taken a couple of overpriced SEO seminars and can’t understand why you aren’t able to quit your day job just yet.

In point of fact, there are three ways to earn six figures from blogging.

  1. Be Robert Scoble.
  2. The engtech method
  3. The Manolo method

Of these three, we at the ol’ raincoaster blog favour #3, for lo, we are in truth and in fact not Robert Scoble and yea verily we can hardly understand what engtech says half the time (and could only get a six-figure job if you left out the decimal entirely), so that leaves only one option.

Fortunately, the Magnanimous Manolo has laid out a simple yet superfantastic planenabling you to scale the heights of the six-figure-blogo-strato-sphere. Or, as he puts it, “to beat the squirrel babies.”

You may think, Mr. Arturo G. Bloggerman, that your grand mission is to enlighten the unwashed masses, to whom you declaim the unpleasant truth from your exalted perch at declaimingloudly.blogspot.com. But in the point of fact, if the unwashed masses do not find your loud declamations entertaining they will quickly move down the street to the Cuteoverload to look at the pictures of the squirrel babies.

So, what must you do to compete with the squirrel babies?

Read the rest of the articleto learn the superfantastic surefire secret to six-figure success!
(sorry, been reading a lot of marketing faff lately)

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tag and release

Never forget! 

Tag, anyway. Release? I dunno: I get off on blogging, but how was it for you?

Despite my noted antipathy towards chain letters, meme-tagging, and all associated nonsense, both the esteemed Juvenal and the self-esteemed Stilletto Girl have tagged me as being a Thogger.

The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

This is better than it sounds, and really quite brave of them, all things considered.

So I’m a blog that makes you think, eh? Probably one that makes you think Canadians are a group of degenerate, tentacled, squid-souled anarchists, and quite right you are (note that all Canadians who do not fit that description are, in fact, Albertans). I am flattered nonetheless.

Release: In the spirit of Anarchy, I’m passing this tag along to anyone who wants to volunteer for it. I have a rare, refined, and reflective group of readers and feel confident that anyone who would step up for this is both ballsy and thought-provoking.

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

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Operation Global Media Domination: BoingBoingSplat

the crew of the good ship BoingBoing 

I finally get my link. After what, a year of praying and sitting through interminable load times (honestly, the website is mostly space; what could take it so damn long to load? Is it all the felt clogging the tubes of the internets?) and interminable billions of posts about Disney’s bloody Haunted Mansion and godawful felt crafts of the neo-repulsive school, I finally got a link on BoingBoing.

Sing Hallelulia! Let all creation sing,
That raincoaster from obscurity has risen,
Glory to the Boing!
Sound jubilation! Let every bell ring clear,
And joyous peals proclaim the message,
Our pwnage of Technorati is here.

Or not: One hit.

Ou sont les A-List Coattails d’antan?

Perhaps panda poo paper just isn’t popular? I even had to replace all the images because this was during the great Photobucket bandwidth blankout of 2007, not that we’re complaining. That would be so unlike us.

Oh, very well; the detail-oriented and sharp of memory among you will recall that we made it once before. All I can say to that is that the halflife of celebrity is clearly short online. In that case, I submitted the story and so my link was on there from the get-go, even if it wasn’t the go-to link. In this case, I submitted an addendum to a several-hours-old post, from which I conclude that BoingBoing readers read it pretty much in realtime, so if you want the glory and the kingdom, for ever and ever, or even for long enough for Technorati to pick up the link, you need to be the submitter of the link in the first place.

Timeliness: just what has been so difficult around these parts lately. I have learned, over the past two weeks of having a roommate, that I am willing to share space. I am willing to share food. I am willing to share even toothbrushes, okay, no, but almost. Point is: I’m fine with sharing most things. But sharing the internet connection, as in he has it some of the time and I have it some of the time?

No.

When you pair that with the fact that he’s an internationally known raw food chef whom I have allowed for the sake of experiment to put me on a special green smoothie juice fast just to see if there’s really anything in this chlorophyll hokum, and that green smoothie fasts apparently make me homicidally enraged from the moment I awake to the moment I lose consciousness, raining curses down upon the heads of my enemies as I drift off to sleep, and furthermore that I am PMSing at the moment, you’ll see that something had to give, and that it sure as hell wasn’t going to be me. Sic transit gorilla mozilla.

Cthulhu Tract

So the router he got seems to work well. We’ve even got our first pirate leeching off the signal, but as long as I can blog, I care not. Share the wireless luv! Information wants to be free!

Also, so do gastrointestinal systems. If I had any cash I’d hit the brunch buffet at Griffin’s like it’s never been hit before! As it is, I intend to scramble eggs with gorgonzola cheese and wash it down with a latte, then follow that up with pan fries. WITH ketchup and Tabasco. Sic transit gloria chorophyll.

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Operation Global Media Domination: Operation Ego!

TIABeen awhile since-t we had one of these, so there is much to report on the Global Media Domination front.

Beavers continue to do well, particularly after I scandalized a certain blogging conference with my references thereunto: one gathers they’re far more used to hearing terms like “Analytics” and “Clickthroughs” than anything more vividly … uh … castidoraean. Conclusion: Blogging about beavers is great for hits, but getting other people to blog about you blogging about beavers is truly Web 2.0.

I’m in ur googlez, baitin ur linkz!

Harshing on best-sellers in the comments sections of other people’s blogs is tonic for stats. If I wanted to win this, I’d simply say straight out that Dave Eggers’ prefaces and footnotes blow Jonathan Really Rather Ordinary and Mister Norell away, but I’m not like that…besides, Eggers has annoyed me recently.

Oo! Oo! I should pick a fight with Dave Eggers! He’s got a baby; no way is he well-rested enough to defend himself.

In other news, shoes are even better for hits than flamewars, particularly when the Manolo bypasses the two original-source articles I sent him and links directly to my own post. This takes me to my happy place and teaches me that there is divine justice in the world: those three pairs of fabulous shoes I bought on Robson Street were as sacrifices to the god of shoeblogging, and He looks after His Own, to the tune of perhaps six hundred extra hits over the weekend and a regained spot in the top 20 WordPress blogs and yay, finally! a temporarily regained place in Top Posts of the Day.

Not quite as good as blogging about shoes is blogging about crocheted bellydancing accessories; it may not bring as many hits, but it does bring prey, so that’s something. And, as always, flamewars bring out the necrophiliacs who gather around to watch the battle. I have no issue with people disagreeing with me: I have a major issue with people misrepresenting what I’ve written and being twofaced. And I have no issue at all with dumb, defensive, hypersensitive, condescending people; nope, no issue at all. It’s kill on sight.

Potentially more dangerous, or at least more criminal, are the readers of Court TV‘s forum who are fascinated (if, apparently, confused) by my post on the uselessness of Howard K. Stern‘s sperm. I mean, the rest of him is useless too; how hard can it be to figure out? But they can’t tell when I’m joking, when I’m quoting, or indeed, why any of this matters or if it matters at all. FWIW here’s a roundup: drug-abusing kid dies, junkie mother dies, rich baby held for ransom by lawyer with the paperwork and Larry Birkhead has the most obvious nose job in the history of the world. You’re welcome.

Also, broke 18k on Technorati. If this keeps up at the rate it’s been going, by this time in 2009 I will be the #1 blogger in the world.

*rubs hands together, mutters “eeeeeexcellent!“*

In Ego news, this is not designed to keep me humble; although truly it’s hard to imagine what could. That is obviously not a task to be undertaken by mortals, and Curtis has wisely chosen the easier path of flattery, may Azathoth poop ten-tentacled blessings upon him and ensure that he never glimpses the Unspeakable Pun at the Centre of the Universe and thus goes irrevocably insane.

Cuz then he couldn’t flatter me again, yo.

Curtis‘ technique is emulated by the esteemed and historic Juvenal of Bread and Circuses, although he fails to specify whether I am bread or circuses; I prefer to think of myself as some kind of fusion between the two, a juggling pop-tart, perhaps, or a particularly acrobatic type of crumpet, performing daring stunts on the back of a docile and magnificent Andalusian and no, I don’t mean Antonio Banderas.

In related news, az has posted about the fascinating internet personality type taxonomy site Flame Warriors, and guess which type I am!!!

But I am impervious to insult:

i can has force field!

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quiz: how nerdy r u?


You Are 56% Nerdy


You may be a bit surprised with this score, but your more of a closet nerd than an actual nerd.
Stop denying your inner nerd! You’re truly dorkier than you think.

How Nerdy Are You?

On the advice of counsel I have no comment at this time…

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