I’ve had another blog for a while but it’s an altogether different beast.  There, I have a bunch of readers who check up on it pretty regularly and it does pretty well in the search engines as most other sites in the niche aren’t optimised at all.  I really started this one for a couple of reasons.  I can write about pretty much anything that takes my fancy, I’m not stuck on a single subject and also I’m interested in learning more about social media.  In particular, how people interact through social media, how and what they share and how things vary depending on the medium used.

So far I’ve set up this blog, which I’m enjoying despite never really having the time to do it justice.  I guess that’s pretty normal.  I’ve started taking steps in becoming a bit more active in the “blogosphere”, leaving comments on friends’ blogs, enemies’ blogs etc. Again time is a big constraint but I’ve had only positive experiences this far and it’s really interesting to see the wide variety of people blogging.  People of all ages and demographics can be found blogging about stuff you’d never expect.

I also started tweeting on Twitter which I found pretty addictive once I’d started.  Despite being a Tweeter nOOb I’ve already got 10 followers.  The fools.  I’ve been getting some pretty good information and good links from the stuff I’ve been following too and I’m sure that in time it’ll be a useful way to promote this blog.  One thing I have found very nice about Twitter is that people can be so bloody nice to each other sometimes.  Even people who are supposed to be competitors.  One guy I follow wrote that he’d had a spring clean of his RSS feeds, email subscriptions etc. and had received a personal email from one of the email newsletters he’d dumped asking if he’d like to follow on Twitter instead and appreciated the personal touch.  Nice story.  The guy was Mike Couter from Digital Agency.  He was writing about Bigmouthmedia, a rival digital marketing firm.  See?  Nice people all over the place.

I’ve also had to dump a few Twitterers because they write bitchy crap all the time so I suppose it’s not all good.  A bit like the real world I suppose – if someone is talking shit in a bar, you soon part ways.

Blackadder

I’ve always liked Stephen Fry.  His Fry and Lawrie show was pretty funny when I was a kid although I suspect it probably didn’t age too well. He did a load of other crap over the years, Jeeves and Wooster etc. but his crowning glory in my opinion was the various parts he played in Blackadder I to IV.Blackadder II to IV (see comments).  I’m sure he’d see things differently albeit he’d be far to polite to contradict me.

Anyway, he’s come to my attention again recently via his new BBC TV show, Steven Fry in America (which is pretty good) and also on the web where he seems to pop up with alarming regularity, talking intelligently about geeky goodness like Open Source, Linux and Cloud Computing.

I figured I would follow him on Twitter and see what he had to say. I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed.  He was in a jungle in Uganda watching Gorillas today for a BBC documentary but managed to find time (and wifi) to tweet a little during the day.  He was obviously elated by the sight of the Gorillas in the wild, as his tweets showed:

1pm – stephenfry : Oh my sainted pyjamas! Just spent 1 1/2 hrs SO close to a group of gorillas. Unbelievably marvellous x

1.08 pm - stephenfry : w00t! Grillaz like totally PWN the jungle, innit x

I don’t think I need to comment further, that’s funny.

google analytics today

This blog took a big step towards world domination today with its first organic search referral.  Actually, it was its first search referral, full stop.  It came from Google, today between 2 and 5 PM, GMT.  It was for the high traffic value and much sought-after keyphrase “man kills gay lover and eats thigh” for which this site ranks at 97 on Google.  Ha, in your face moneysupermarket.com.

In reality this blog is probably too unfocussed to ever get much traffic from search but that’s probably the only way I’ll keep it going ie. if I can just write whatever takes my fancy when I get the urge and have the time.  It’s a good chance to experiment with other forms of online promotion too, knowing I don’t have guaranteed traffic coming from organic search.

On that note, why not subscribe to the feed or follow me on twitter. Come on, it’s cool and hip, all your friends are doing it.  While you’re at it, follow Stephen Fry, he is one funny man.