Thursday, March 31, 2011

Best blogging practices II

My purpose as a blogger is to inform widely about significant developments for a range of topics. Because of my publishing frequency, the stories together read like a narrative; they became more about the journey then about an arrival.

Every time a subject is raised, there has to be a story with a fresh angle with fitting illustrations and appropriate hyper links. Doing this well, grows the audience for a blog and it also raises the ranking of my articles for the search results. This mechanism is the only reason I can think of why this is my best read article with currently 5,692 page views.


It is important to understand that a writing style defines a public. For me no long academic style articles, I think these are overrated because many readers do not finish them. They are not for me because an academic article aims to cover the whole ground while I prefer to celebrate developments and call attention for opportunities. By more then doubling my readers within a year, the numbers prove the viability of my formula.

Traditionally the English Wikipedia and its public dominate wiki publications. The distribution on the map shows that my public is largely in Europe and Asia. This coincides with where the most interesting Wikimedia community developments occur. It is where I expect the biggest growth in activity and traffic for the Wikimedia projects.

The Wikimedia Foundation aims to grow in the "global south"; there is a public, there are able communities held back by a lack of base technology. I raise these issues and I look for partners in crime. It should not be a crime, it should be our way forward.
Thanks,
      GerardM

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