"An eccentric old fellow training visionaries." - a lensography

I've had many blogs, some are still available for their archives and link resources; none are currently active. What happened and why would I consider using a combination of articles, Squidoo, and Twitter as a blog replacement?

Did I let the dip kill my blogs, or did I refuse to let a sunk cost deter me from a better choice.

The source of change was frustration with the limitations of blogs. Even when archived, most blog posts slowly drifted off the radar, seldom to be seen again. Occasionally an old post would have some Google juice and get steady views, but most of my many-times-a-day efforts were soon buried beyond archeology.

First I found Squidoo. A good Squidoo web page (lens) is a bit tougher to create than a good blog post, but not by much. And old lenses get found, get hits, and keep communicating.

Writing effort and thought is not lost in a lens, in fact many of my early lenses just keep getting more traffic. Yes, there is a risk my blogs popularity was about to explode, and I threw it all away. I considered that remote possibility, but I don't think my writing is for the masses. My writing is getting better, partially thanks to blogs, but it doesn't compete with Google news.

To ease separation anxiety for myself and my blog followers, I created a lensography with my three most recent lenses featured at the top, much like the first page of a blog. Some blogging followers followed me to the lensography - others found my lensmaster page and have used that to find lenses with insight or humor into issues that concern them. Overall, I have many more page views per day now than when blogging.

Next came BFuniv on Twitter. It has its limitations, bulk following means little - the tweets fly by too fast. But to those that use other tools with Twitter, like TweetDeck, Selectivity is back, and they can keep all those ego building following numbers.

For me the most dynamic value of Twitter is that you are only allowed 140 characters in a tweet. Take my typical convoluted sentence and force it into a tweet and I sound concise. For those that want some Wallaceonian nuggets, or updates on Bastiat Free University,- following the tweets of BFuniv gives them what they want.

Now to the third element, articles as part of a blog replacement strategy. I can post articles anywhere, The Ezine @rticles site is like Squidoo - it has lots of Google juice and my articles here will gain by that association.

I've written online articles and published them, but I've yet to find a site that meets all my needs. The last one I tried, Ezine Articles, was bureaucratic and randomly edited - they declined an already approved article when their formating failed and I had to re-block quote a section. I wasted too much time with their silliness.

On line articles are powerful. Folks that need content for their publishing can copy essays you've written as long as they include your short bio and links at the end. Everyone wins. Now I need to find one with good reach I will be comfortable using.

These three sites will combine to form an improved platform over a standard blog. At least once a week I plan to write an article and greatly improve or create a new lens at Squidoo. Some of you could do this daily. Most weekdays there will be a BFuniv tweet with some insightful wisdom, or a bad joke.

Together this will probably be less work than feeding half a dozen hungry blogs, and less tedious for all of us.

It is my nature, and the nature of the internet to keep testing, I may change from Twitter or be writing on another articles site by the time you read this. Someday I may even blog again. Prior to blogs, web-rings made sense, who knows what communications tools will work best, for me, tomorrow?

Before we change anything, we will need to see value in new tools. We also have to consider if persistence is likely to be rewarded with our current tools. We don't want to constantly be switching; but it takes six months of effort to reasonably understand a tool, two years of dedication to become expert, and five years or more of expert work to become an authority. Somewhere between starting and five years you will know enough to decide if your current route will reasonably lead to success, or if you need to look elsewhere.

For me it took three years to discover I'm not cut of the right cloth to be a well followed blogger, another year to get to where I am now. I could have applied more effort to blogging and probably increased my success, but only at considerable cost to choices I consider more important.

Life is a competitive environment and I've learned an important lesson. "Don't be more dedicated to anyone or anything; than they are willing to be dedicated to you." - Allan Wallace

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100% of direct income from my lenses goes to micro-finance solutions for world poverty provided by the Grameen Foundation. The Grameen Foundation is creating a rising tide of positive influence upon our world.

Will YOUR life be based on what you want to use it to accomplish, or by random urges of what you want to do? - Allan R. Wallace