It Is Who You Know, Not What You Know!

When you look at blog stats for some of the top bloggers on the internet it comes to no surprise that their volumes of comments are based on who they know and not really what they know.

The question then becomes, how do the writers of those blogs get to know the people who read or comment on their blogs?

Surveys show that most of the followers of a person’s blog site (84%) are personal friends. Then 10% are strangers interested in the subject. That leaves 6% to people who just stumble upon the site.

So, it seems that the more you tell friends about your blog the more people are going to start following what you have to say. This also confirms what I have been saying for over a year now that there has to be some crossover to the offline world in order to make the online world work.

Now, if your friends are all offline and do not participate online for any reason then the problems turns to getting offliners online. Why is this a problem? Well SPAMMING and other forms of deception are not helping. Estimates show that there are over 500 million people in the world who have been online, got so feed up with the trash, deceit, deception and the spam they have left the internet for ever. That means that there are a lot of people who know how to get online and are capable of doing so but choose not to because they see no value to being online.

So, getting friends to come online to read your blogs is near impossible.

How about making new friends who are online? Well that is also pretty tough given the fact that over 83% of the people online are looking for an angle or driven by something other than reading blogs. The number one thing that people come online for is to find someone of the opposite sex to communicate with or look at. This closely edged out scamming by just a few decimal points. Give all of this I see why most people are finding it hard to attract strangers to their sites.

How do the blogs sites explain having tens of thousands of friends? Over 78% of the blogs sites that have thousands of real people viewers are on the subject of Technology. Blogs sites that discuss subjects pertaining to anything new or are fashionably popular are going to draw the few hundred thousand people who roam around the internet after going to their friends sites to read. So if the search engines pick up a keyword on Britney Spears or other popular celebrities or subjects they will send them to those blog sites.

So, back to why it is who you know more than what you know. Getting to know anyone online is getting tougher and it only makes sense that if you are wanting to make a go of being online then you need to bring your offline friends online. If that does not work then you are going to have to make friends offline who are interested in what you have to say and are interested in coming online to read about it. So to make blogging worthwhile you need to get started build on the list of people you know off line.

To learn more about this subject and more on business and golf, check out the IBGS Site.

Burnout: Blogging to No Avail

OK, I know there are a bunch of you out there. I see your blog sites. You have reach or gone pass the Burnout stage, haven’t you?

How can I tell? Well your site has not had a new post in six of more months or years. I really don’t blame ya. It is a shame. There is a lot of good information being written out in the blogsphere that is really good to know.

I have found that there are a large number of people who have been writing about what I have been writing about here for a long time before I started writing about it. That is depressing in itself, but the fact is, there more to this blogging thing than loading up a WP site and getting with it.

Nope, as I am reading from other people this blogging game that people use as part of their internet marketing is just one side of the coin flip.

Over the past three years I have been keeping my eyes open to learn more about what this blogging thing is all about. What I have learned and many before have written is in order to get to be popular online you have to have two things…a lot of online friends and, more importantly, some sort of OFFLINE group you are part of that has more people in it than you have online friends. That is the only way this game will work. Being just only online only works for Spammers.

For some of you this might have come as a surprise, but for us seasoned vets this becomes relevant about six months after your start blogging. That is about how long it takes for you to start thinking Is This Really All Worth It…

You can learn more about this and other relevant subjects at the IBGS site.

Taking Sabbatical!

I looked up the word Sabbatical and its definition pretty well describes what I am going to be doing.

A sabbatical year is a prolonged hiatus, typically one year, in the career of an individual taken in order to fulfill some goal, e.g., writing a book or traveling extensively for research.

Well, I guess it is time to finally fess up that none of this stuff out here on the internet really works. I would like to say it is just me, but unfortunately there are a large number of us out here that are now realizing that None of this is really all worth it.

I will be taking a sabbatical to work on my next book that I will be outlining all of the fallacies of the internet…until then you may want to check out my other book to catch up on what is going on.

You can check out the periodic blogs I will post over at my main site, IBGS Blog. Hope you enjoy the archive of blogs I have posted here.

Hey, Who The Heck Are You, Anyway?

I think my good friend Paul O’Flaherty is onto something here.  Who The Heck Am I?  I have the same problem with the name thing.  You can Google my name and it comes up with trying to get you to spell it with Two “T”’s, when the correct spelling is with one ‘T’ or my last name spelled ‘Duck’.  I have even had some of the sites that write about me confusing me with my friend Paul by calling me Mr. O’Duke.

Then you have the Mr Business Golf name I go by…WOW, want to know how many ways there are to butcher that name up?

Of course, at least Mr O’Flaherty, and I we use are real names…the ones our mom’s gave us, not the names you see around the internet like “Stick Ittome” or “Sir Spamalot”.  You can only image what you are going to get from someone with those names.

So who the heck are we anyway if our names are not spelled correctly? 

OH, well, guess its time to get back to reading more about what is going on out here that I questions is really working.

 

Hello, Is there ANYONE OUT THERE?

I am beginning to think that the only people out here in cyberspace are me and you. Of course I am still a little skeptical about you since 98% of the viewers to any of my sites are made by search engine BOTS. But I will assume you are not a spider since you are processing logic now and have gone beyond the spider demarcation zone of twenty words. So, what do ya think, is there really anyone out here besides us two?

I have been out here in the blogsphere for a few years and I have looked at countless others profiles in countless other blog sites and I am now wondering if they are real or just something a computer program created to make it look like there is a real person representing the information provided.

I am sure you are like me and have found a few blog sites that suit your fancy and a lot more that don’t. So how come there are not that many people coming around here?

Yaw, I get the emails from people who have found my contact info, and those are fun, but where are the viewers out looking for viable information they can use…like my book? Where are the comments from people on what it is they are looking for?

How about you, did you know I even have written a book? No I don’t mention it over here because I would get in trouble. But I can tell you are more intelligent than most since you are still reading this blog. So you know that somewhere in this site is my link to my IBGS site where the real action is and where my book is located.

So, is there anyone else out here other than you and me?

Wrap Up the Week

Yes and what a week this has been.  Lots going on but not going on. Watched Nyle Pruitt powered a golf ball over the horizon.

I posted the Table of Contents for my book so you can check that out. 

I was over checking out KZPS.com, and I is still cooking…A little too much Country Music, but Hey, that is what the on off switch is all about.

That reminds me, I need to check in with SemiTough to see what the heck is going on.  Haven’t been over there in a while since I have been buried over here with all of the changes with IBGS.

Ol Rex Dixon is still cooking over on his site.  I hear he is getting into a lot of new stuff.  HUMMMM guess we just will have to keep reading.

Golfers Are Not Online!

Wow! Have you seen what is going on over on the IBGS site?Like every thing else on he internet, things move quickly and things change. IBGS is going to start addressing the issues around what it is going to take to get more golfers online.

Looks like golf in business is really a subject people want to know more about. Unfortunately, there are not that many golfers online. But that is the point of what is being said over on that site.

There are tons of reasons why golfers are not online. The big one is they are golfers and they are playing golf and not sitting around surfing the internet or hunkered down in a Chat room of some golf site. No they are on the course, at the driving range or somewhere getting some exercise of some type, even if it is just doing 12oz curls. That is probably more productive than sitting around looking at all of the foolishness going on over on MySpace and Facebook.

No Video Blogs Today: So I will Twitter

I was going to do some Video Blogs for my IBGS site today, but I got into something that I am allergic to and I am swollen up all over.

OH well, maybe I can get them out in little while.

Meanwhile, over on Twitter…what is that all about?  Does anyone know?  Or better yet, does anyone care?  Seems there is something to it but I see no interaction with anyone or traffic going anywhere from it.  I see it is something that the Cellphone & Blackberry junkies can get into, but the big question is WHY?

A lot has been written on the internet about Twitter and it looks like it boils down to the 14 to 18 year old market is gah-gah  about this site since it drives their parents crazy with having to pay for the Text Messaging charges they are running up.

OH, well, maybe one of the Twitter will grow up to be something after all.

Hopefully be back with some new VB’s later today.

Mid-West Blogging: Much More Readable

I was talking to Rex Dixon and he confirmed that the blogs produced in the Midwest seem to be about more general topics and not stuff that are centered on Internet Marketing, the latest gadget that is being thrown on the market or for another internet site being sold, bought or receiving a zillion dollars in VC.

They just seem to be easier to read and are on subjects that are of general interest.   

Just another profound observation made during one of RD and my many online conversations.

 

Is Blogging Worth It?

I was just told that if I do not blog at least one friggin blog every frigging day that I might as well pack up and stop blogging…so here goes…

OK, the rain has stopped and it is time to do yard work, but before I get out there and get all lathered up I can predict right now that I will be back in here to tell you that it is hot outside, so let me get this and that blog out of the way…

It is not hot in here blogging, it is hot outside and once I get through working outside I will be back in here where it is not hot.

Now, I got my daily blog out of the way you now know how lack of news worthy today is… 

Is this really all worth doing just to sell a book?