Forget doctors, lawyers and sanitation workers. It’s me who has the most important job in the world: BLOGGER.

Oh, you beg to differ? With a few simple keystrokes us lowly bloggers can pull off your mask, expose your true self and watch you tumble from that pedestal.

Cut me off on the highway? I’ll upload photos of you and your car.

Give me poor service? I’ll out your business on Twitter.

We’re like the paparazzi for regular people – armed with keyboards.

That’s why, without further adieu, I unveil a plan that I ask all bloggers who deem themselves worth the words they type to back..

Our occupation belongs on a license plate.

That’s the campaign. A movement to have our profession/skill labeled on license plates that get screwed into our entry level, fuel-efficient automobiles.

I don’t know how license plates operate in your neck of the woods, but here in the United States, there was a time when license plates were used simply for identification purposes. A numeric or alphanumeric code uniquely identified your vehicle within the issuing region’s database.

These days, however, there has been an American movement to incorporate more and more information onto these metal rectangles. The most popular bit of information people are paying extra to include is an abbreviation of their profession. Otherwise known as showing off.

Acupuncturists get ACU; Medical Doctors get MD; Registered Architects get AR, and so on.

What purpose could these identifiers possibly have? Other than the need for an emergency service, I doubt I’ll need to flag down a Hypnotherapist (HT) or a Podiatrist (DPM) out on the road.

That’s why my license plate should say Blogger (BLOG). I’m just as important, if not more so. If you need a list in an emergency, I’m your man. I can also mobilize hundreds of subscribers with the lure of a simple contest.

So are you with me bloggers? It’s time we get the respect we deserve! What could be a better start then an engraved piece of metal announcing our presence to the world.

So write your congressperson and make my dream our reality. If it’s good enough for POWs – it’s good enough for us. As failed writers plagued with ADHD - haven’t we suffered enough?

One of the things about blogging I never understood is networking. What’s up with every one always networking and losing valuable time building their profiles? Why do people whore themselves out on sites such as Facebook, Linked In and many more?

If I were a blogger, I’m sure I would have other things to do than poke, stump and throw food at other bloggers on Facebook.
Admitted Linked In actually can be useful, but honestly… building profile just takes too much time away from the important things. Activities such as learning how to blog, monetize, leverage new blog launches, improve SEO knowledge (PDF) or leave insightful comments on other blogs. And obviously reading the whole echo chamber collection.

But networking? Honestly, I couldn’t care less. Quality always will come out, sometimes it takes more time than one had hoped, but I’d rather be an unknown blogger with 4 regulars than a$$ kisser.

The only thing I need now, is quality.

By now everyone already knows that bloggers have a pretty exciting life! Exciting and relaxing. Just like Franky, I’m sitting here naked from the waist down and haven’t shaved for weeks.
But as if all that wasn’t enough, a Union to protect my rights, both on insurance and financial level is exactly what I still need! I want a Union! My kingdom (and the overused wheels of my office chair) for Unionized bloggers!.

Let me explain.

A blogger’s life is hard, it’s the epitome of every professionalized freelance dream. Unionized protection IS needed!
Here’s why.

Blogger’s wake up hours need to be protected
One of the biggest advantages of being a blogger is the freedom to decide my own working hours. And start working whenever I want. With the growing amount of wannabes, it becomes important to protect this advantage: no blog network owner should be allowed to impose me to publish entries before 6.00PM (my local time!)

Coffee is expensive and should be paid for by the network owner
Bloggers are notorious coffee addicts and belong, together with (web) designers, to the resident group of $tarbuck$ squatters. Both $tarbuck$ and good coffee beans are expensive. Those expenses have to be covered by the blog network owners. No coffee beans below Lavazza or Segafredo quality should be accepted. Daily at least 3 outdoor Mochaccinos should be paid for.
Every blog entry hitting the Digg/Reddit/Netscape/Techmeme front page should be rewarded with a bonus kilo of exotic Arabica coffee beans!

Fruity hardware, allowing anytime wireless access has to be provided
How can you call yourself a decent blogger if you use a box equipped with Redmond software? Of course you need the shiniest gadget, allowing you to be online at any time. You never know you might just get that stroke of genius while you’re in the middle of the pampas, far away from your internet connection. Your iPhone will save you and allow you to publish your marvelous entry at anytime. Fancy touch keyboard inclusive.
If you live outside of the distribution area of new, shiny gadgets, it’s the blog network owner’s task to hire a bunch of hackers and make sure anyone, anywhere can access and use those oh so shiny gadgets. And brag about them on their blog. Paid by the network owner of course.

Maximum working time has to be minimalized
It is important for bloggers to be allowed to whip out quick and dirty entries. Entries that only need 4 minutes of work, proofreading inclusive. Actually, the maximum time devoted to an entry should be limited to 4 minutes. If a blogger wants to work longer at an entry, this should only be goodwill-based, not expected.

At least 200 social contacts has to be provided by the network owner
To make sure that bloggers have enough of distraction and IM noise, every network owner has to provide at least 200 active social contacts to newly hired contributors. Minimum 40% of those contacts voluntarily have to cyber on cam whenever the blogger feels the need to go dirty!

Travel equipment and expenses have to be paid for.
Being the overactive, glued to the office chair or couch, blogging species we are, I demand that every 3 months a new set of pillows and ‘soft wheels’ for my office chair and couch are provided. More experienced bloggers will get a new duvet and new bedding every 6 months.

It is obvious that we bloggers, freelance contractors, special working requirements have and those need to be protected by our future Union!
Furthermore, we shall continue to enjoy the right to decide ourselves not to work under a certain rate/entry. But that… that’s a freedom we already have.
Maybe we can oblige blog network owners to include links to at least 5 of our own sites as well. On every network blog of course!

Please give me that Union now! Let my own voice, personality and (in)competence be oppressed (protected) by the strong voice of an Union, putting everyone on the same level. Obviously Union leaders will be the best paid ones among us

For a more serious take on the topic, go read Jeremy Wright’s view on the economics of unionized blogging.

To everyone who felt the need to add something to Hugh McLeod’s whine about the A-List (link condom out of principle), let me tell you that the reason behind the entry not falling traffic was, but a blog eons old strategy. If twitter is so March 07, this strategy was so Fall 06. We call it linkbaiting.

When do you linkbait?
If you’re not as whorish as our bestest friend [tag]Scoble[/tag] and prefer not to loose time on every new network platform, gathering exactly the same list of friends you already have in your other 2 months old profile, or if you’re a member of … lets say a popular blog directory which has more than quadrupled the number of rulers. Add to that almost 20 times as much of members to the newest and designographically [sic] most elitist network and your shortage of time to write note after note in their community… then you whine linkbait.

And over the next days you admire the sudden flux of new readers. Readers who just discovered a graying A-Lister, a blogger trying to cope with the cruel reality of not being discovered anymore like in the old days, not having found a Blue Monster Sequel^TM and who’s still waiting for the next PR gig to go viral.

All those conditions combined, bring out the best blogging techniques in any A-Lister, and suddenly they remember that every columnist lurks.

Now Whine is the device!
Whine, sit back… and enjoy how everyone falls into the trap.

I guess exactly that is what makes an A-Lister. Knowing how to play the audience, the lurkers.
Well done, Hugh

Yesterday’s cat fight between Nick Denton and Robert Scoble seems to have deeper foundations. Although The Scobleizer denied that he’s looking for a new job, this seems to become the biggest public secret.
Why would anyone otherwise suddenly remind the whole blogosphere plus his wife of all the social networks he is present at? With a bonus mention to LinkedIn as well

No, I still don’t do LinkedIn or Plaxo and I rarely use Skype anymore. I’m going to Plaxo on Tuesday to look at a new version coming out. But LinkedIn is close to getting me back.

LinkedIn only because he really tries to ignore all those platforms???

Damn, it seems like everyone in the world wants me to join it. I try to ignore these things, I really do.

I guess the Zooomr flirt with Sun didn’t work out for Scoble and the team around Zoho are an experienced bunch and already have an evangelist.
Certainly no blogger who forgets his work in favor to read feeds. If only I could find that entry I read yesterday, where Scoble mentions he is addicted to feeds. 31000/month isn’t it, Robert?

It must be sad if you’ve already blogged for half the technical blogosphere, gotten presents from Intel (I still wonder what happened to disclosure and the Intel notebooks!) and your content really isn’t that compelling.
I wished I just knew as many people.

Nevertheless Robert, I’m sure you’ll find something appropriate for your needs and if not… there’s always PPP.

Sincerest,

Franky.

Some days ago I noticed Chris Garrett link to Blogg-Buzz, a Digg for bloggers. Of course I signed up, claimed my favourite Franky nick and submitted some entries.

Only some days later I wonder

Why, oh why did I claim a new nick and one became member of one more service?

A digg for bloggers surely sounds interesting and the Blogg-Buzz platform is a perfect copy of Digg cool platform already, although still in Apha stage.
Alpha, coming with all its own problems, such as few members, total self-whoring and little traffic. Right at the moment my biggest gripe towards Blogg-Buzz is that there’s no one and submissions hardly get buzzed and bring little traffic. No, I’m lying. My biggest gripe is that everyone submits his own crap!

And that I have one more profile to maintain. I’ve never subscribed to that many services as since I started blogging! We, bloggers are sheep. And SEO nerds. But we are social media!
No new service rises or we have to belong to it, try it out and pimp it! We live the social dream!

Well, I’m sick of it. Got enough of all those new platforms. I won’t subscribe anymore to any new service. I will only continue to maintain my 24 26 profiles I have all over the intarwebs and that’s it from now on!

NO NEW SERVICES/PROFILES FOR ME ANYMORE!

How does my Sunday evening look? I am going to visit all the profiles I have and try to do something useful with every profile today! One of my browser home tabs is My last.fm profile. I actually actively use last.fm. That means I scrobble all music I hear to last.fm. It serves me great to keep my network, my bandwith active. Otherwise… no damn usage. Oh, I forgot another usage of last.fm : help me monthly to get rid of $3 as subscriber.
Afterwards I am going to watch mug shots at MyBlogLog. We all like it graphic don’t we? Then of course I need to go submit some stuff to Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Blogg-Buzz. After having read an overdose of nerd comments at those services, I need a break!
What would be better than go stalk my flickr stats and notice that 2 more people have found the way to my pictures. Sigh, I feel happy! After 2 hours of flickr stumbling, I’ll have a mosaic of pictures in front of my eyes and need to read something again! No better place than go stalk all my friends at twitter and facebook. STFU, I have no MySpace! At least not that I’d admit!
Of course I shouldn’t neglect my Jaiku and Wordie profiles either! They are valuable for traffic and user profiles are good for SEO! And to make myself important, everywhere I have to leave nice and insightful comments, so everyone sees I have been there and they’ll visit me my profile.

Luckily today is a great day. Zooomr is still offline, so I can’t loose any time there, but the name Zooomr alone reminds me of my UStream broadcast.
Sigh, webcam. When was the last time I logged in to Stickam and whored myself out there. I’m sure they all have forgotten me.

Screw it all, I’m not participating to all this anymore! No.way!
I feel old. I’m retiring. Come find me at My 9rules and Virb from now on.

Once social, always social!

You may now continue your regular scheduled capslock program. And prepare yourself for more entries from me, unless capslock kicks me out here!

So there’s the elusive question. Who’s the world’s first ever blogger. A CNet article discusses how ten years ago, the concept of blogs was born, and who the people involved were.

Was the first blogger the irascible Dave Winer? The iconoclastic Jorn Barger? Or was the first blogger really Justin Hall, a Web diarist and online gaming expert whom The New York Times Magazine once called the “founding father of personal blogging”?

Or did all three merely make incremental improvements on earlier proto-blogs? The answer is most likely “yes” to all of the above. In truth, awarding the title “first blogger” is more than a little tricky because the definitions of blog and blogger are slippery. Any definition should probably include posts sorted by date, with the newest posts at the top and the rest archived for future use (criteria that would eliminate the Drudge Report, for instance).

CNet points out, quite correctly, that the main problem here is firstly how to define the concept of blogging. Is it the format, meaning reverse-chronological updates? Or is it the intent, meaning to share opinion or stories? Or is it the method of publication? The use of hyperlinking to relevant external sites? Or is it the presence of reader comments?

However you would define the concept of the Web Log, it boils down to one thing: do we really need to know who the first ever blogger was? I think it would be nearly impossible to determine that. And if ever you were to single out someone that fits the title, you’d be sure to have someone contest that claim.

I tend to think that it’s not an issue of who the first blogger was. It’s not a question of who was there first, but I think what’s more important is identifying the people who have made significant contributions that have now shaped what blogging is, and that have raised blogging to a higher level and importance to the eyes of the rest of the world.

The term metrosexual was dubbed word of the year for 2003.

Metrosexuality is the trait of an urbane man who has a strong aesthetic sense and spends a substantial amount of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle. Though the term has undergone a transformation from its original meaning (a heterosexual man who appeared or acted as if he were homosexual), current trends have seen the metrosexual label placed upon masculinity’s embracing of practices usually perceived to be feminine, rather than those specifically associated with the homosexual. Debate surrounds the term’s use as a theoretical signifier of gender deconstruction and its associations with consumerism. Current gender scholars view metrosexuality as representative of the embracing of relational understanding in addition to its lifestyle and aesthetic implications.

Frankly, I think this is bollocks—just some excuse for men to justify wearing makeup and getting pedicures, and crying out their eyes in public. But then society has changed, hasn’t it? And so has the view of masculinity as having to be about gruff, strong-egoed individuals.

Now the term technosexual is coming into fashion. Oh, please. I think I’m seeing a trend here. Next time, (insert favorite word here)-sexual will be in fashion.

They’re more of a marketing term rather than something that really reflects something prevalent in society. So what if men have been touching on their emotional sides and trying to keep a bit neater in appearance? It happens, but you don’t necessarily have to give it a name!

But then if there’s money being made from such marketing hype, then these people must be serious. For one, Calvin Klein is heavily banking on the techosexual for marketing its latest fragrance line, the in2u. From Valleywag:

In 2008, the marketing campaign for the fashion label’s new scent, CK in2u, borrows the language of bloggers, teen texters and Myspace exhibitionists. What better metaphor for the evolution of blogging: first, an exercise in self-mockery; then, irresistible media catnip; and, within a decade, inevitably, a zeitgeist to be bottled, literally, and marketed to the masses.

(I’m not one to rely on Valleywag for useful information, but then who does?)

Even the New York Times featured commentary on the CK ads (via complex.com)

A typical line from the press materials for CK in2u goes like this: “She likes how he blogs, her texts turn him on. It’s intense. For right now.”

So if you’re a blogger, or really into other things technology, you’re a target for marketeers. They know technology excites you, and that includes gadgets, electronics, autos, and even apparel and accessories. But then again, this kind of marketing is more of hype rather than lasting buzz. What happens when bloggin and tech are no longer in the limelight?

Image: Jason Kottke posing in front of a CK one ad, circa 1998

The team over at Performancing gave a fantastic offer last week: that they would help you “reboot” your blog, pooling the resources of all their individual skills and experiences as probloggers-:

Do you have a blog sitting around that you want help with? Want to take it to the next level but don’t know how? Well youre in luck. We are a panel of experts that’s right all of us in someway whether design is your flaw, content creation, or no inbound links or marketing. We have all the tricks up our sleeves.

And we are sitting here waiting to help.

~ Ok that sounded way to much like a late night psychic hotline commercial. But seriously. I’m itching to help someone even if it’s my own blog become successful or profitable. So toss me a blog below in the comments if you want some free advice and a simple makeover tour.

We will take one a week and spend one week giving you tips and sharing that with the community. It’s a once in a lifetime chance to really launch your site into the next level of authority.

And they followed through, choosing as their first reboot-: ThroughBall.com.

There were some 50 comments left in response to this post at Performancing, and the blog owner seemed really pleased with the feedback he received.

So for all you suffering bloggers, whose blog might be sinking and needing a “jack up”, head over to Performancing and get in line for a future reboot.

Heck…I think JOAB needs one. What the hell has happened to this blog?