Holden Page

Breaking Tech News, Is It Really Worth it? (Nope)

Well now that TechGeist is dead, and I have officially gotten over how much that blows, I figure I should share what I have learned (rather what little I have learned, whatever) during the life of TechGeist.

One of the goals of TechGeist before ahem… Alex moved to that other blog (in all seriousness, congrats to him, I just enjoy and I am allowed to give him crap), was to become a source of breaking tech news.  Obviously that failed (epically, might I add) but we did end up breaking a few Hulu stories and an Amazon kindle story. All of them ended up on Techmeme and linked to by various big-name sites such as Mashable and CrunchGear.

Obviously we had a geekgasm every time this happened, but just like any orgasm, it was super friggin awesome for about a whole ten seconds. Sure, using Clicky we saw the hits roll in like it was 4th of July of fireworks, but only for about one hour. After that initial hour, the traffic jump was reminiscent to that of a trickling rainfall after a random ass downpour. After that day the traffic on those posts was reminiscent of…

nothing.

Not one of those posts have gotten a hit in the past month. Not one.

#FAIL

Instead, the posts that are still getting hits are posts like my review of Brizzly, my post about Google Wave and even my post about the Chrome theme fiasco. None of these posts garnered +1000 hits on within minutes of publishing, but none of them can beat the 3,000+ hits my Brizzly, Wave and theme post have each garnered over time via search hits and random linkings across the twitterverse.

You know what makes this even more awesome? These non-exclusive, non-breaking tech posts are still bringing in 600+ hits a day to a tech blog that is now dead.

Can breaking news do that?

Homecoming, Come and Gone

I finally am a senior in High School, a day I have been waiting to come for much too long. But even though I am over-joyed about the fact I get to move on with my life and actually explore the world without hall passes I still can’t help but feel a certain sadness.

The sadness I feel is the sadness of realization that I will never be able to experience and even see the same people ever again.

Why No Comments?

So I just got an e-mail asking one thing, why no comments? It is a valid question and I will freely tell you why. I hate comments, they aren’t apart of my flow. I know, I am selfish.

So what is my internet flow?

1. E-mail // First thing I check every morning and the number one best way to get a hold and talk to me
2. FriendFeed // I am addicted to FriendFeed, I sometimes have debates over what is more important to me, e-mail or FriendFeed?
3. Twitter // Thanks to Brizzly you can find me on Twitter almost as much as I am on FriendFeed and Gmail.

Add on top of all the blogs I read and the blogs I write for I kind of like to keep with this flow and this is why I don’t comment back on my own blog. Now some of you might argue I should make this apart of my flow. You’re probably right, but my current flows pros are outweighing my current flows cons. Sue me.

So I have given you the best gift of contact I can give you that doesn’t involve comments, my e-mail. If you are taking the time to click on my e-mail address and actually shoot me off something I will take the time to reply back to you. Why? Cause it seems like no one e-mails anymore unless it is of some sort of significance and it is part of my flow.

So be happy I don’t allow comments. You know now I will always respond to you.

How To Meet Great People, HINT: Just Talk

A lot of people as of late have been emailing or DM’ing me on Twitter/FriendFeed asking how I have to come to meet, and regularly talk to prominent bloggers and the like. While some think this is a silly question, I do not. Why? Because I asked the same question all the time. Then I came to the realization, an epiphany if you will, stop shutting up and start talking. So that’s exactly what I did.

My issue before was that I expected people to just notice me (don’t ask me why I thought that, but it is not an uncommon thought amongst people in my experience) so I would idly read my favorite blogs such as CenterNetworks, Louis Gray and a dude I now write with, Alex Wilhelm.

The day I started communicating though was the day I started accomplishing something. It was the day I started getting noticed and the first day that lead to some great things that some of you oddly think is quite an unachievable feat.

So you want my advice? Talk. Someone will listen.

The Art of Simplicity

If you have visited my site before (which I wouldn’t know, I don’t do the whole analytics thing) you have obviously noticed that there isn’t that much to notice. This was done with a purpose in mind.

This blog is not about displaying ads in specific spots to squeeze every dollar out of Google Adsense ads, it is not meant to impress you nor is it a place to pimp my latest social media profiles. It is simply a place for me, a blank canvas and in my opinion this blank canvas is art. This is my canvas to splash paint across in erratic directions. This is my art of simplicity.

No Stats? No Problem.

If you know us bloggers then you know one thing, we love stats. Stats are the cheese to our wonderfully cooked Macaroni and we will do near anything to get our grubby hands on the latest analytics program that promises to dig even deeperinto our visitors data. I know, us bloggers are  ”creepers”, no need to remind me. So it should come as a surprise to you that I am not implementing not even oneanalytics service on this blog.

There are a number of reasons as to why this is, but I’ll tell you the main one, time.

Analytics suck up a huge amount of a bloggers time and with this obsession leads to the digression of a bloggers writing. Instead of publishing great posts on a regular basis to get great traffic, we are staring at our measly number of the visitors we have instead of attempting to fill our insatiable appetite. So without analytics on this personal blog of mine, I will have one of the most important things, time.

Time to write great posts that will fill me with a sense of accomplishment and will hopefully leave you as a reader with a sense of knowledge gained. This is a win-win for both of us, reader and I, let’s go with it. Shall we?

Why I Have Chosen Tumblr

There are a few, alright, many blogging platforms out in the wild. If you know of me you will also probably know that my love for Wordpress is quite ridiculous and I have laughed at fools in the past who use such inferior technologies (*cough* Posterous *cough*). So this begs the question; Why am I using Tumblr?

For simplicity’s sake

While I love Wordpress, with all my heart, I have grown tired with the insistent hacks which then lead to updates that might or might not work. Thankfully, in most cases they do, but that is besides the point. The main reason I am using Tumblr over Wordpress is because I don’t need ninety percent of the features Wordpress, or even Blogger offers for my personal blog.

My intent with this blog is to share with you what I am personally thinking about, without any worries or intent on checking stats or focusing on what readers want. This blog is about me, you are simply along for the ride on what could be a bumpy road.

One post a week, all about me. Let’s see bumpy this road can get, shall we?