January 10, 2006

top ten blogger lies

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1. I don’t con­si­der myself an A-Lister.
No, but I turn up for spea­king gigs at all the big con­fe­ren­ces any­way. Uh-huh.
2. I don’t care about traf­fic.
Of course I don’t. Even though I’m a free­lance con­sul­tant, and my blog is my pri­mary way of mar­ke­ting myself. Rock on.
3. I’ve read your blog.
Yeah, well I read the “Musings of an unem­plo­yed tech con­sul­tant” bit on the title bar, before clic­king off. That counts.
4. I star­ted blog­ging back in 1999.
Of course, back in 1999 a Flash-animated, brochu­re­ware home­page was con­si­de­red a blog. Kinda sorta.
5. My blog has no com­mer­cial agenda.
I’m far too sexy to care about money. Exactly.
6. I only have adver­ti­sing on my blog as an expe­ri­ment.
That explains why the ads­trip is right under the “Musings of an unem­plo­yed tech con­sul­tant” bit. Indeed.
7. I’ve never liked the une­ga­li­ta­rian term, “A-Lister”.
Even though I am one. Oh, the irony.
8. I’m proud to be a D-Lister.
Even though I spend 7 hours a day wri­ting the thing. Right.
9. He’s a big hero of mine.
He’s got more traf­fic than down­town Mexico City and I’m hoping to God he links to me one day.
10. I really admire what she’s doing for the blo­gosphere.
I’ve noti­ced that she’s currently sin­gle.
[Ins­pi­red by Mr. Kawa­saki, of course.]
[BONUS LINK:] “Top Ten Rea­sons Why Nobody Reads Your Blog.”

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83 Responses to “top ten blogger lies”

  1. pieman says:

    Link to me dam­mit. I’ll buy a suit, promise.

  2. Oichi Ru says:

    Nicely done :-)
    » He’s got more traf­fic than down­town Mexico City and I’m hoping to God he links to me one day.
    lol !

  3. lounger says:

    Honesty is the best policy. Rock on.

  4. #2 — I only care about the kind of traf­fic that comes back (all 2 of them, inc­lu­ding me. But my dog doesn’t count as he’s myo­pic but maybe that could be a 50% traf­fic uplift…??)
    #3 — I’ve got the atten­tion span of a gold­fish and the brain to match so you’ve got about a nano­se­cond to impress me (the remain­der of my life is spent on spell check…often unsu­cess­fully)
    #5 — anyone who says that (let’s fair…outside the folks who genui­nely only want to record their lives for family and friends) needs to take the Pinocchio test
    #8 — D as in dun­der heid?
    #10 — so you think my blog is a repla­ce­ment for AFF? In your (occa­sio­nally wet) dreams

  5. henriette says:

    isn’t it all apart of the “sha­ring” thing, that you’re honestly just blog­ging to “share know­ledge and insights” and your hoping to become an a-list ?
    I think hie­rarchy are in all layers of society.
    I couldn’t help but thin­king that the latest article about Jason Cala­ca­nis — made him look like any rock star , any model.
    does peo­ple see blog­ging as an easy way to reach the stars ?
    hell Im blog­ging as a part of my carrier..
    Im at the con­fe­ren­ces for the net­work…
    i do geek­din­ners for the com­mu­nity and the apprai­sal of me as a per­son..
    I think it’s cool when I meet some­body who I had no idea had such a big impact on other peo­ple..
    but I like the way I can choose to dis­play myself with my blog… wha­te­ver the cause or rea­son..
    see you at lift’06

  6. Maybe we should have a wiki page for anyone that falls under point #10 .…

  7. Nicole Simon says:

    Barry, and if those sin­gle women tag them­sel­ves correctly, they will pop up on your rss subsc­rip­tion of your kind of women? ;)
    Hen­riette: is it really a choice which parts you show or isn’t it more what you don’t show?

  8. Sam Sethi says:

    Point 10: Now I know why you and Sco­ble were han­ging out with the french model blog­ger at Les blogs. And you said it was the size of her posts that you admi­red ;-)

  9. If women tag them­sel­ves correctly it would be a rever­sal of female habits when dating.
    What, bit­ter, me?

  10. Brock Tice says:

    Hey, I don’t have a com­mer­cial agenda. Right now, I’m a gra­duate stu­dent. I guess I have some hope that by blog­ging now, I’ll be more recog­ni­za­ble when I go to get a job.
    Maybe that *is* a com­mer­cial agenda. Hmm.
    No adver­ti­se­ments for me though. It’s not because I’m too sexy or anything. I just hate them.

  11. I run a pod­cast site called ‘Soap Detec­ti­ves’ for fun and gig­gles, pod­cas­ting 1950’s radio dra­mas. When I first star­ted I had the usual goo­gle ads on site, to help pay for traf­fic — I have about 600 daily lis­te­ners so band­width is a con­cern.
    I hated what the ads did to the site. It loo­ked dis­join­ted and just plain ugly. So I remo­ved them and am now asking for lis­te­ner dona­tions ins­tead. And guess what, dona­tions are out­per­for­ming ad reve­nue by about five to one. No riches are being made, but the band­width bill is being paid for which is all I am after.

  12. dotBen says:

    Re: #8.
    I don’t spent 7 hours a day blog­ging. Well, almost… :)

  13. Hey Hugh — yours is one of the few blogs I keep coming back to. Switched from lur­king to doing — and we’re doing a small group blog from Taji­kis­tan, one of the poo­rest coun­tries in the world.
    I’d be intri­gued to hear what you thought of this entry -
    http://nightingalesangatwcc.typepad.com/tajikistan/2006/01/chained_to_pove.html
    A cha­llenge — could you come up with a car­toon that spoke to that article?

  14. Peter Cooper says:

    Haha, I actually /did/ start blog­ging in 1999 and have the archive.org archi­ves to prove it! Admit­tedly it wasn’t called blog­ging then, and it was all a bit juve­nile, but it was a blog by modern stan­dards darn it ;-)

  15. Jie Kang says:

    11. I haven’t blog­ged much lately, but will post more very soon.
    I have dis­co­ve­red that rea­ding blogs is much easier than wri­ting them. :)

  16. Shel Israel says:

    I resent this expose on my per­so­nal style and the only way you can make up for it is to link to me three times today. While I won’t buy any suits from you, I will rent that sweatshirt you were wea­ring at Les Blogs.

  17. keith says:

    Hugh:
    The ques­tion is… Do you get PAID to speak at those conferences?

  18. There is not a blog­ger out there who doesn’t care about traf­fic. Whether they are willing to admit it or not is another question.

  19. I star­ted blog­ging back in 1999… wait, actually it was 1997…
    Of course I’m strictly D-List mate­rial. :)

  20. So… all this time, you knew?
    ;D

  21. DRM Stuff

    She­lley Powers has star­ted a must-read thread on DRM, the agru­ments for and against. Per­so­nally, I’m in favour of loo­king for busi­ness models that reduce DRM. Having lost a num­ber of albums due to a hard drive fai­lure, the only…

  22. Hey Shel — you must have some inti­mate know­ledge about Hugh’s bathing habits that is hid­den from the rest of use…do tell the sec­ret.
    And then I had another nano­se­cond thought…Hugh blog­ging in a deckchair out in the snow in his Tom McM smo­king jac­ket, Ber­mu­das, the ensem­ble com­ple­ted with H having a fag han­ging out the side of his mouth, a ready chi­lled Stormhoek to hand and a quiet chortle at these asi­nine com­ments.
    The mind bog­gles! But I guess HM rea­ders and lur­kers should at least have the decency to pass the com­pli­ment back with appro­priate sho­vel fulls of eru­di­tion (or what pas­ses for it.)

  23. wolske says:

    Cool, I only sco­red 4 out of 10.
    Good stuff, I always enjoy it — long time lur­ker, first time com­men­tor, poten­tial stal­ker: http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies)”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies)”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies)”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies)”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies)”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies)”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies)”>http://chriswolske.com/blog/2006/01/top-ten-blogger-lies

  24. Top 10 Blog­ger Lies

    Seems ever­yone is in the mode of crea­ting top 10 lie list at the moment this one is pretty funny. [GapingVoid]…

  25. Greg Smyth says:

    Man, I’m totally fee­ling you on num­ber 9. If only because I’ve been blog­ging for the same five peo­ple for the last year.

  26. scott says:

    Hugh:
    How about this one –
    11. I love that blog­ging turns the dis­tri­bu­tion of infor­ma­tion into a con­ver­sa­tion. (Now, how do I get all these jac­kass losers to stop emai­ling me? I’m an A-lister!)
    Scott

  27. Nega­tive blog­ging energy buildup

    I don’t nor­mally post about blog­ging because pos­ting about blog­ging is bet­ter left to the pro­fes­sio­nals, whoever/wherever they may be. (To me, gene­ra­ting a lot of income from the ads on your blog does not make you a pro­fes­sio­nal anything.)

  28. solaria says:

    I won­der what the top 10 is for the inter­net, period. Lying on the inter­net, no mat­ter what the venue (be it blo­gosphere, or other forums) seems to be pretty con­sis­tent,
    For as long as I’ve been online…
    Since back in 1927… ;-)

  29. Rachel says:

    The minute fic­tio­nal pro­fes­sio­nal wrest­ling beco­mes a hit in the blo­gosphere, let me know.
    I can’t even keep my LJ upda­ted daily, so I pro­bably don’t count too much. But at least I know it.

  30. #11. “Who reads top ten lists?“
    #12. “I’m just a geek.” (Or “I’m not a geek,” as the case may be.)
    #13. “Subscribed!”

  31. DUST!N says:

    A tree not seen for the forest:
    Yelling ups­tairs “No honey, I’m not blog­ging right now.“
    or “No honey, I’m not rea­ding blogs right now.“
    — —  —  —  —  —  —  — –

  32. Stupid Guy says:

    The Top Ten Lies Of Busi­ness Gurus!!!!
    1. I’m suc­cess­ful because I’m bri­lliant. Never mind that I sold a money-losing piece of crap to a dot-com at the height of the inter­net mad­ness. You should lis­ten to me for my bri­lliant insights.
    2. I’m not

  33. This is funny :) . Howe­ver, I do care about traf­fic simply because lately it has been abu­sed (alot) by spambot/spamlink. Kinda eaten away my bandwith…

  34. Max says:

    my blog is on hia­tus. really, it’s not dead. i swear.

  35. Top 10 blog lies

    How many have you told?
    gaping­void has a funny list of the Top 10 Blog­ger Lies, but just as funny are the many com­ments.
    Lies inc­lude:
    I don’t care about traf­fic.
    Of course I don’t. Even though I’m a free­lance con­sul­tant, and my …

  36. Ajay D'Souza says:

    You are my hero ;)
    Nice post btw.

  37. AJ says:

    I’ve read your blog.
    I really have. I swear ;-)
    But great post.

  38. Benn says:

    Did any­body read this?
    Didn’t think so. ;)

  39. AGRADA says:

    Wow, there are alot of comments.

  40. brie says:

    Sheesh! It’s not like I’m not sit­ting here in bed all day rea­ding these mind##@@$g blogs. I otta get outta here and get a life. This blog was worth it, though…

  41. Top ten blog­ger lies

    1. I don’t con­si­der myself an A-Lister.
    No, but I turn up for spea­king gigs at all the big con­fe­ren­ces any­way. Uh-huh.
    2. I don’t care about traf­fic.
    Of course I don’t. Even though I’m a free­lance con­sul­tant, and my blog is m…

  42. geoff says:

    Blog­ging is something other peo­ple have the time to do (and read.)

  43. Nick Hawkins says:

    My blog game is to see if she can form cohe­rent sen­ten­ces and if she’s hot and single…

  44. Kman says:

    You for­got one:
    (11) I don’t blog from work. I only spellcheck the posts that I wrote in the mor­ning before I came in.

  45. Beth says:

    I’m a sin­gle female and I do nothing for the blog-world, other than to give infor­ma­tive posts of how sad and pathe­tic my life really is, and to let some of you out there know-we may be the only inte­lli­gent life­forms around. I have no com­mer­cial agenda-I couldn’t give away a card­board box to a bum. I basi­cally blog so years from now when I’m in an old-folks home they can read what I pos­ted at 32 and rea­lize I was always nuts.

  46. #11 — I’m sup­por­ting Sco­ble in his defence of the China Syn­drome because he needs it(yeah — and we’ve got a book to sell as well)

  47. marx hafner says:

    by doing this i moved from d to z lis­ter
    http://renfah.net

  48. Daily News For January 12, 2005

    Domes­tic Alito Wife Lea­ves Hea­ring In Tears After Dem Attack Video: Ms. Alito Walks Out of Hea­rings Crying Joe Biden’s…

  49. Here’s what I pos­ted at Guy “ship shoddy” K’s “blog”:
    Here’s a lie for you:
    “Ship shoddy, but ship first“
    aka
    “Don’t worry, be crappy“
    That’s con­su­mer fraud, you cha­ra­la­tan loser.

  50. Mal4242 says:

    Thank god we have blogs now! Now ever­yone can see what peo­ple have been pos­ting on mes­sage boards/ usenet/BBS for 30 years. Oh what a remar­ka­ble shift in the para­digm. Finally a sys­tem that dis­tri­bu­tes infor­ma­tion and what peo­ple think.

  51. Top 10 Blog­ger Lies

    Some are a bit tech rela­ted but I think in gene­ral it applies to a lot of us:
    Top 10 Blog­ger Lies
    2. I don’t care about traf­fic.
    Of course I don’t. Even though I’m a free­lance con­sul­tant, and my blog is my pri­mary way of marketing…

  52. Bita­co­re­ros de pri­mera e introducci

  53. hugh macleod says:

    Ste­ven Streight:
    Please be nice. Thank you.

  54. The Top Ten Blog­ger Lies

    Here at Bare Feet, we're very bullish on blog­ging (um, some might even say anno­ying).  We know that's it's a great tool for busi­ness deve­lop­ment as well as per­so­nal growth.  It ena­bles us (and you) to get to know the people …

  55. zoom says:

    Si por eso la sala tiene espe­jos — por­que a veces se v

  56. bdsv says:

    Si por eso la sala tiene espe­jos — por­que a veces se v

  57. Jonski says:

    How True. I’d link to my blog but I had to take it down because the traf­fic was crashing the ser­ver. ;)

  58. T_AND_HOOCH says:

    HOOOCHIEEEEEEEMAMMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMMMAMAMMA
    NUNANUNANANNANANANNANA!@1!!!!!!!!
    HAAAAAIENNNNNNNNN HAAIIEEEEEEEENNN HAIEEEEEEEEEEN

  59. 7b says:

    This = unfunny. Good try though, champ. Try not to suck so hard next time.

  60. TmjUtah says:

    What’s “traf­fic”?

  61. terri says:

    You’ve been ins­ta­launched! Which would make some blog­gers buy all their buds a round of drinks. But you don’t care about mun­dane stuff about a link from the blog­fad­dah, huh?

  62. Robert says:

    I don’t care about my traf­fic. I don’t even check it, much less obsess about arbi­trary miles­to­nes:
    http://theargumentclinic.blogspot.com/2006/01/10000-visitors-woohoo.html

  63. Stephen says:

    Re: #4 — What’s wrong with that? Per­so­nally, I’ve been making fun of morons on my blog since 1942.

  64. newscoma says:

    Come to my site. I’m all about the money and I have only been blog­ging two weeks.
    I spend eight hours a day so no one will visit.
    Thus, I do it any­way because it plea­ses me. Am I self-promoting, sure. Why not? No one else is going to sing my prai­ses but me.
    No ads today. We will see if I want them tomo­rrow. I can change my mind.

  65. triticale says:

    Truth be told, in 1999 I was still doing Use­net, and under a dif­fe­rent nickname.

  66. joma says:

    Well, my blog­ger archi­ves only go back to Jan 2000, but I was using another plat­form before that. Honest.

  67. Horst Graben says:

    Cool site, I actually loo­ked at the main page. You’re onto something with the graphics. I esp. like the car­toons. I’m sur­pri­sed more blogs don’t exploit the one pic is worth 1000 words lever.
    #11 Keep telling your­self the blog expe­rience enhan­ces the day-job bot­tom line.

  68. Sonia Belle says:

    My top 5 lies:
    1. Cool blog…
    I haven’t actually read your cool blog, I am here pro­mo­ting mine…
    2. My blog is NSW
    That always attracts traf­fic, and it might actually be true… I could be from New South Wales…
    3. Let’s find as many ways to link to my blog as humanlyhumanly…
    Thank God for cut-and paste…
    4. My blog really is NSW, but I won’t tell them…
    It’s always fun ima­gi­ning peo­ple at work, clic­king furiously to get rid of pop-ups as their boss is pas­sing by…
    5. I am a girl and I am naked…
    That always works…

  69. Thomas Hazlewood says:

    I tried blog­ging because I thought I had something to say. At the end of my first week of blog­ging I’d lear­ned, to my cha­grin, that I had little left to say (that is, I’d found my self to be too sha­llow a well) and that others had already said it more ful­so­mely and bet­ter.
    Now I can admire the for­ti­tude of the esta­blished blog­ger and empathize with the less visi­ted ones. (now, lwt me re-trace the links that got me to this obs­cure place…ta! )

  70. Guy Kawasaki says:

    Hugh,
    Thanks for the link! I love your lies! Can you send me an email? I’d like to ask you something.
    Thanks,
    Guy

  71. BlogWorks says:

    Best blog post ever

    Jeneane Ses­sum wri­tes “The Top Ten Lies of Blog­ging Con­sul­tants.” Exce­llent list. Hugh Mac­Leod has <a href=“http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Ty…

  72. Very amu­sing and right on the money,

  73. The Exc­lu­sive Interweb

    Hugh Mac­Leod is on a tear about blog­ging. Crea­ting one punchy top ten list after another, and now the two immu­ta­ble laws of blog­ging. A return to dis­cus­sion of blog­ging for blogging’s stake, since he’s been away atten­ding to suits and wine.…

  74. Every blog­ger should read this, thanks for pos­ting it.

  75. I’ve read your blog and I find it great — head on over to our blog at http://www.touchstonegadget.com/blog for fun!
    Haha just kid­ding — I love the post — I have lin­ked to your post as well (in the hope, of course, of get­ting more traf­fic from your blog!)

  76. Automatt says:

    I didn’t bother to read these.

  77. joe says:

    OMG PLZ DO NOT LOOK AT THIS MYSPACE PROFILE
    http://myspace.com/j0ey69

  78. Goo­gle vs. Feds and my selec­tion of web news…

    Here is a very detai­led account in ‘Fed vs. Goo­gle’ case: Bush Admi­nis­tra­tion Demands Search Data; Goo­gle Says No; AOL, MSN & Yahoo Said Yes… See rela­ted wri­tings: Sub­poena Resis­tance Hurts Goo­gle Stock :( ‘Goo­gle as the guar­dian of our…

  79. […] stum­bled on this article about the top ten lies blog­gers tell and at the top of it is this car­toon which captivated […]