So yesterday marked the end of my "Building My Blogroll" posts.  When I originally started them it was just a way to explain why I was adding these particular people to my blogroll even though I didn't know them personally and they were only a few of the many blogs I read.  As I got further into it though I started to feel more like the exercise was important for me to acknowledge those who had (without knowing it) encouraged me to start this and had contributed greatly to the way I'm going about it.

Overall I'd say the experience was an enjoyable one.

That said, while I am still remain glad I did it I have to admit to getting a little uncomfortable as I began to realize that the people I was posting about would almost certainly see the posts I was making.   This discomfort led me to what I think is an interesting observation in regards to the negativity that is prevalent in the blogosphere and I wanted to share it. 

It seems to me that the "everyone hears everything" mentality (a.k.a. the Internet + Google) of the Internet actually encourages negativity from those who participate in it. 

Follow me here, in real life it is almost always considered smarmy to excessively compliment someone to their face.  There are rare exceptions (events in which that person is being honored for example) but for the most part it really just isn't done.  Compliments are certainly given but usually in private by either giving the person a pat on the back or by speaking well of them to others. 

At the same time the real world considers it brave to publicly confront someone when you disagree with them and cowardly to bad mouth them behind their back.

Where this becomes interesting is when you get into a situation where every bit of communication is not only public but delivered to all via Google.  Now you've made it impossible to compliment someone privately while also making it impossible to confront someone in any way that isn't public.  Because of this you end up encouraging much of the negativity seen on the Internet because people's first reaction is to be drawn to what normally has a positive connotation in public (e.g. confrontation) while avoiding what normally gets a negative connotation (e.g. public praise)

Its interesting to me that this doesn't get discussed more with all the "new media" talk surrounding things like blogs.  A different code of behavior is needed for a world in which everything you say about a person is guaranteed to get back to them.  It seems to me that bloggers in particular need to make more of an effort to be positive about their colleagues for the very reason that the medium lends itself to negativity. 

Every form of media in some way compensates for the weaknesses of their chosen distribution method, why should bloggers be any different?

I actually put a lot of thought into whether Mary Jo Foley was appropriate for this list since her field of coverage is so narrow (she only covers Microsoft) and she almost never strays from it (I can't think a single example where she did).  But in the end she's just so good at what she does that there was no denying how big a roll she plays in my blog reading life. 

In fact I've always been surprised at just how good she is at getting the scoop especially since Microsoft, imho, has made several attempts to "end run" her in favor of people who they obviously felt would give a more glowing account of their new products.  But despite that she's still your best bet for getting Microsoft information first. 

More importantly she's your best bet for putting it into context.  There are very few people who have been watching Microsoft as closely as she has for as long as she has and even fewer people who are smart enough to interpret what the companies past actions have meant.  Anyone who thinks that Microsoft is just a raging monopolist or a company of fools who wait around to steal other companies innovations really doesn't understand the very deep internal culture that the company has developed. 

Microsoft is perhaps the first company to be born in the startup mold and then mature to adulthood with all the scars that an "aggressive" business philosophy leaves behind.  From everything I've seen the culture that has formed around some of those scars is amazingly complex.  Understanding it takes someone who has both watched the company for a long time and is smart enough to know what they were watching and Mary Jo Foley is definitely that person. 

We would all be blessed beyond belief to have someone half as good as Mary Jo Foley following every tech company around and that is why Mary Jo Foley  is the final entry on my Blogroll list. (and p.s. - Buy her book) 

Rarely will I quote text in one of these posts but rarely will you run across a blog that has its own mission statement.  Since this is one of those rare occasions I thought I'd share it before going any further.

It is the mission of AjaxNinja to provide quality instruction on how to start a website or blog, develop it using common web development techniques, and then subsequently direct traffic to the website or blog using SEO and Social Media..

I'm really not sure Aaron Stannard's AjaxNinja site fits into the narrow mold of what I would consider a blog but (as in the case of Techmeme earlier in the list) it doesn't really matter to me because of how entertaining it is.

What Aaron does that no one else on the web is doing is to analyze the actual creation of a web site and to treat that creation as an art in itself which is worthy of studying.  He's sort of like the Anti-Scoble in that watching Scoble can be instructive but Scoble isn't really instructing you as much as he's simply doing something instinctively well and allowing you to watch.  Aaron on the other hand tries to codify what someone like Scoble does and then state it outright which is a much better way for new people to learn. 

Aaron concerns himself with actually figuring out and teaching what it takes to make a real successful site from scratch and that is something I haven't seen anywhere else. 

Beyond that he does mix the normal blog type posts in.  I learned quite a bit about Facebook development just by watching his ups and downs as a developer beginning his first Facebook app.  That type of stuff is what makes the blogosphere invaluable and again Aaron is good at instructing about things that he himself has just learned. 

Finally, and I debated whether to throw this out there or not but I think its an important point.  Aaron is pretty young having not even graduated College yet.  Some might consider that a reason to ignore him but I see it as just the opposite.  Here is a guy who has shown he has the energy, know-how and leadership skills to create something at a young age and take that thing seriously.

Whenever someone great comes along people always lament the fact that they didn't have the opportunity to watch that person from the start of their career.  I suspect that one day Aaron could be someone great in this industry and that alone is reason to subscribe to his feed and that (along with everything else) is why I put Aaron Stannard at #7 on my Blogroll list.

Yesterday one of the people I wrote about was Phil Haack who is also the creator of SubText, an open source blog engine written with .Net.  Given that I thought it was only right that my next post be about the founder of the blog engine that I use (also open source and using .Net) Mads Kristensen. 

When considering what to write here I was tempted to just say "Click Here" and be done with it.   Had I not thought some people would take it as an insult to him that is probably exactly what I would have done because that page represents what I like most about his blog.  He almost always teaches me something.

Sometimes its something that will make me a better developer such as in this post and sometimes its just something to brighten my day such as in this posts.  But one way or the other I can count on coming away from his blog richer in knowledge than when I got there.

In that way I think, to me, Mr Kristensen epitomizes the blogosphere I want to be in. 

The blogosphere should be about sharing knowledge and creating a community in which we all benefit from the little tid bits of information that each of us pick up going about our day to day lives.  If I can get smarter from you and you can get smarter from me than we both end up better off for having connected.

That I guess is the bottom line here in that I'm better off for having found him.  He has made me a better developer and even when I disagree with him on a technical issue I feel like I've learned something from him.  If you use Blogengine .Net and you are a C# developer you would be a fool not to be reading his blog and even if you are just a C# developer ignoring him isn't very smart. 

For those reasons I've put Mads Kristensen at #6 on my blogroll.

(or at least I will once I get back from vacation)

To a certain extent Scott Guthrie has been robbed.

This post was originally going to be about Scott Guthrie and how I really appreciate not only his blog but how (given his position at Microsoft) he embraces the community built around his products.  I mean, any man who writes even one 30+ page tutorial as a blog post deserves a lot of praise regardless of who he is.  But then I got to thinking. 

Though all of the above is true the biggest part of what makes me admire the man is not what he writes but what he has done for the .Net Community.  Anyone who has watched Microsoft for even a short period of time knows that they've left a trail of disastrous online marketing initiatives in their wake.  For every Channel 9 there have been a hundred bizarre little sites that have been forgotten and which didn't really make sense when they came out. 

What Mr. Guthrie did that put all those efforts to shame was simple but ingenious.  He embraced the community himself, with a personal blog, and he surrounded himself with people who were smart in their own right but who had embraced the community in the same sort of way. 

Given that I decided to, rather than dedicate this post just to Scott Guthrie, dedicate it to him and his team which (to me) consists of Rob Conery, Scott Hanselman and Phil Haack.

(I realize there are a lot more people on his team some of which even have blogs but this is what I consider to be the core group that I read and appreciate the most)

It is hard to explain without actually reading their blogs but they really do form the four corners of their own little community.  A coding A-List if you will.  By being there and putting the effort into having two way communication they've formed a sub-community of blogs who react to what they say in the same way the tech blogosphere reacts to whatever is on Techmeme at any given time.   More importantly as an ASP.Net Developer myself it helps to have that community of people out there who discuss issues relevant to the specific technology I use. 

Beyond that they actually PUBLISH CODE which is HUGE.  One of my main goals in starting this blog was to start to publish some of the code I've written for myself but that I think could benefit others.  Keeping that in mind I have to ask you: have you seen any code on this blog?  Do you know why not? 

Because its hard, unbelievably hard.  The kind of hard that you recount to your grandchildren when you're trying to explain to them what kind of soft wimps they are in comparison to you when you were their age.  THAT kind of hard.   The writing, formatting, commenting and explaining of even a small code sample can take as much as 10 times what a straight blog post would.  

Yet not only do they do it but they manage to do it on an amazingly consistent basis (and I'd like to dedicate the last part of the sentence to Rob Conery specifically).  That in and of itself is an amazing gift to the development community and one that I don't think I could say enough about it. 

So for that, as well as for just producing awesome products, I put Scott Guthrie, Rob Conery, Scott Hanselman and Phil Haack as #5 on my blogroll.

(and they'll be added just as soon as I'm back from vacation)  There's wifi in the room so I was checking to see that this auto posted and decided to just add them now.

I'm going to cheat a little bit here. 

I had already written a pretty anemic post explaining why I like Mathew Ingram but I was never happy with it because of how short it was.  Then Mr. Ingram made a point I really wanted to draw attention to and that made the situation worse because it would be odd to make the blogroll post and then turn around and quote him in a separate post.

So I'm combining the two ideas into one post with the first part being why I appreciate his blog and the second part addressing what I wanted to say about his recent post.

On the first point, I think the easiest way to make it is to say that there have been many occasions where I honestly felt Mathew Ingram was the only sane  person in the blogosphere.  Whenever there's one of those "techmeme explosion" where everyone's jumping up and down over some imagined slight Mr. Ingram is almost always the first one to (a) realize how unreasonable everyone is being and (b) call them on it.  Neither of which are small tasks as you end up drawing the enmity of everyone and often times end up alone because those who agree with you don't have the guts to draw that same enmity.

I'm really not sure the tech blogosphere could go on without a Mathew Ingram in it and I would hate to see it try.  For that reason I've put him at #4 on my blogroll. 

That is also what makes it hard to write a whole post about him.  I don't think you could overestimate his value but stating that fact doesn't take terribly long.  Which is why my initial post on him was so anemic and why I'm now resorting to this (somewhat awkward) transition.

Recently he made a post in regards to the whole "Google Shared Items" snafu in which he lays out how odd it is to get angry at Google for sharing items that you marked as "Shared" (a point that a surprising amount of people are missing). 

That's a good point in itself but in his post I think he makes a bigger point that gets lost in the shuffle.  That is what I wanted to draw attention to.  In the post he says...

Scoble has decided to take the high road and blame Google for not implementing ‘granular privacy controls’ — and that might be a good thing for Reader, just as it would be for Facebook.

But it’s not something that’s necessary, in my opinion, nor is it something Google should be slammed for not having. The company explained that shared items would be visible to GTalk contacts — pretty simple, in my opinion. Plus, they can only be seen by contacts who also use Google Reader, and those contacts have to specifically click on the shared items from other users to see them. It’s not as if they’re being emailed to your friends, or scrolling by on the Jumbotron.

Would GPC be handy to have? Sure.

This brings up something I noticed earlier this year with Amazon's Kindle when several people commented that the Kindle was insufficient because it lacked the iPhone's touch interface.  Bloggers understandably want their dream product but it is not understandable to then bash a product if it doesn't do everything exactly the way you want it to. 

Sure there are some features that really do become "must have" but those are a rare occasion.  Even features as great as a touch interface or Granular Privacy Control aren't enough to make the whole product insufficient and I'd bet money that virtually no one dropped Google Reader because of the sharing feature.

If you want to fairly review any product you really have to force yourself to be sensible and weigh all the good features against the bad.  What makes the above cited criticism particularly maddening is the fact that none of each products competitors sport the features being demanded.  So how is it fair to then demand that feature from one vendor?

I'm not saying you can't suggest things for future releases I'm just saying there's a huge difference between "I wish it had this" and "it sucks because it doesn't have this".  That's a difference that more bloggers should pay attention to. 

I started reading blogs using a software called SharpReader.  It wasn't that bad a reader but after a while it just didn't seem sufficient anymore (I honestly don't remember the exact reasons why I stopped using it)

In the end I just remember thinking the creator of it either wasn't or couldn't be dedicated to keeping it up so I began searching for a new Blog reader that was a little more feature rich and was in active development. 

That led me to RSSBandit.  This post isn't about RSS Bandit so I won't go into it except to say that I was impressed enough to start using it and because of that Dare Obasanjo's blog was added to my reading list.

I've since moved to Google Reader for my blog reading but Dare is still one of the first blogs I look for when checking my feeds.  There are two reasons for that, one of which is easy to describe and the other not so much.

The easy one is just that he's insightful and very good at sharing those insights with his readers.  There are a lot, A LOT of people on the blogosphere who are talking out of their posterior end when they talk about technology but Dare isn't one of those.  He's built actual technology, he's put effort into knowing that technology as well as knowing the business needs that necessitated it in the first place and he speaks about it from that perspective.  I honestly think he's the most authoritative voice out there on many of the topics he speaks on.

Read his posts on either JSON vs XML or Building RESTful Web services (two of my personal favorites) and you'll see what I mean. 

As far as the second reason I like Dare, its hard to find words to say it.  But basically it boils down to him not letting go and being willing to carry the conversation on to a logical conclusion.

What I mean by that is that the blogosphere runs on a flawed philosophy of: I say something, you disagree so you say something and then we both forget about it.  No serious debate has ever taken place in one isolated exchange.  Dare's a guy who will keep the discussion going either by posting several entries or by taking to the other bloggers comments and continuing the conversation there.  That's a trait I really appreciate in a blogger.  It shows someone who is concerned with getting to the truth and not someone who just types to hear himself talk. 

Anyway, for those reasons and many others that I'm forgetting I put Dare Obasanjo at #3 of my Blogroll list.

There is a lot of talk in the blogosphere about Techmeme and how effective it is at chronicling everything that goes on in the blogs.  I have no interest in being part of that debate because, to be honest, I don't really care.

For me, and I have to admit I stole this observation from Scoble's late night Techmeme video,  but for me Techmeme is simply Gabe Rivera's linkblog and that's good enough.  Does it matter to me that it might not pick up some great idea on a small blog somewhere out there...not really.  It's entertaining to me as it is and that is all I ask of any site that I frequent.

So maybe Techmeme won't manage to find the next big thing but it will find a lot of good stuff.  Beyond that it does a good job of documenting the "A-List" bloggers which allows me to ignore those blogs for the most part.  I mean, I like Jeff Jarvis and I'm glad a lot of people enjoy reading his blog every day...but I don't.  That said I do think he has some very interesting things to say and when one of those "very" interesting things come along I know that Techmeme will let me know about it. 

Finally, and this is a bit of an aside, but I just wanted to say that I think Techmeme has the classiest system of dealing with ads that I've seen on the web.  Their off to the side with graphics so they draw attention if you are interested but don't bother if you aren't.  Then they are ever so subtly slipped into the site's RSS feed in one big post so that I can check them out if I want to or again ignore them if I want.  Beyond that they are forced to actually use blog posts as their ads which makes it much more likely that you'll get something useful if you are interested in the ad. 

Anyway, all of the above things make Techmeme #2 on my Blogroll list.

Where to begin...

I honestly don't remember how I ran across Robert Scoble's blog or even when I read my first post but whenever it was that marked my entry into the world of the blogosphere.  As my feed list has grown over the years (largely due to Scoble)  I still don't think I've ever come across anyone who is better at the art of writing a blog than he is and though I rarely succeed I go out of my way to emulate  his style (in format not content of course)

Below are some of the lessons I've learned from reading his blog over the years...

(I should say that these are lessons I've inferred from reading his blog and not necessarily things he's said so if you take offense at it blame me not him)

Appreciate the Blogosphere:  Scoble is fond of advising people to link as often as possible but I honestly think there's more to it than that.  Linking is about sharing the fascinating things that you're coming across and in order to do it well you have to really want to show people the ideas that you are linking to.  A lot of blogs just use other posts as a jumping off point to go on their own tirade and I  don't think that is what the blogosphere is all about.  Bottom line: If you aren't fascinated enough to need to share the post that you are linking to than you probably shouldn't link to it at all. 

Credit Ideas: To a certain extent this belongs above but it's such an important point that I think it needs to be reiterated.  Even if you are just repeating something you heard at a conference it is important to give credit where credit is due.  A good blog doesn't have a lot of ego because the blogger realizes that the beauty of the blogosphere is in our collective knowledge and not in any one person looking good.  When you embrace that attitude it isn't that big a deal to say that 'x person' was the first to bring up an idea because he or she is part of your group and it is the group's collective knowledge that is really important. 

Blog what you find interesting: This seems obvious but in the race for more subscribers and higher page rates people tend to start blogging for other people instead and that is a mistake.  Again, a good blogger is all about enthusiasm and enjoying the chance to speak to the world about what is important to them.  People who try to tailor their message not only make it hard on themselves (by not writing about what they enjoy) but make it less entertaining for those who read them.

Embrace your detractors:  I think this is one of the most important lessons I've learned from reading Scoble's blog.  The reality is that anyone writing a blog is going to have someone launch an attack on them at one point or another.  People who try to ignore it or respond in kind just end up starting a flame war which leaves everyone worse off. 

By not taking the attack personally and even drawing attention to the attack you convey to the attacker (and to the blogosphere as a whole) that its ok to disagree with you.  Moreover you send a message that you're willing to listen to anyone who is willing to exchange ideas.  In doing that you both diffuse the situation and start a meaningful dialogue with the person who attacked you in the first place.

Acknowledge your readers: Before I was a blogger I was a commenter and being a commenter is not always an easy life.  It seems to have become cool in the blogosphere to bash the comments sections and I think that's a pity.  I'll be the first to admit that the anonymity of the comments can cause a certain negativity but there are also a lot of people who are just legitimately trying to share their ideas and (for whatever reason) aren't ready to start a blog of their own yet.  They shouldn't be disrespected for that.  The blogosphere is about ideas and those ideas should be cherished whether they come from the comments section or from another blog.

Be Open: One of the least understood lessons in the blogosphere is that of actually being open.  A lot of people pay lip service to it and a few people even try to live by it but very few actually accomplish it.  One example that jumps to mind is in the area of acknowledging a posts impact.

A lot of bloggers will make a post which causes a stir and then never say another word about it.  I don't know if that's out of modesty or what but it always comes across as a little disingenuous.  Scoble is one of the only bloggers I know who will actually come back with a follow up and say "I didn't expect that to cause so much controversy" or "Wow, I can't believe that got on Techmeme".  That's openness to me.

If you're going to be open than you have to say what you are thinking and ignoring your own impact is just one of the ways in which bloggers show they aren't doing that.

Pick sides while staying neutral:  There is an art to picking sides between two bloggers in the midst of a flame war.  Many choose to stay out of such conflicts or to go in guns blazing for one side or the other but I don't think either accomplishes much.  What Scoble does is to express an opinion without taking a side and to this day I've not seen a better means of moving a discussion forward.  Again, in these situations its all about diffusing the situation even if you aren't the one in the midst of a war.  By giving an opinion in a calm manner and being complimentary to both sides you can hopefully help them move forward and actually do some good for the situation rather than just ignoring it or making it worse.   (and on a side note, ignoring a big controversy that everyone knows about isn't being very open either)

There is probably more that I'm forgetting but that is all I can think of off the top of my head.  I'd suggest everyone check out the book  Scoble co-wrote with Shel Israel called Naked Conversations.  Though it focuses more on businesses using blogs its also useful for an individual wanting to take blogging up (in many ways the concepts are one in the same since businesses wanting to use blogs need to embrace personal communication between employees and customers)

In writing this I was hoping it wouldn't come across quite so "gushing" but its hard to write a blog entry about the man who is largely responsible for you blogging without gushing a bit.  The truth is that I disagree with Scoble at least half the time and I have no doubt that I'll eventually end up writing a critical post about him in the future but even that will be following his example which is why I'm praising him so much now.

(and for those who think this is a cheap stunt to get a link I'll have you know Google still doesn't consider this blog worthy of indexing...so nyah!)

Anyway, for all the above reasons and any I may  have forgotten Robert Scoble will probably always be #1 on my Blogroll list (and his Link Blog will be #2).

Addendum: In re-reading this post I think some people might get the impression that I think I'm some kind of great blogger.  I don't.  The fact is I'm new at this and though I can list the rules above pretty easily I don't always follow them as well as I should.  It doesn't necessarily take a wise man to share wisdom. 

The next week or so is going to be pretty packed schedule wise.  I have to finish up at work, get everything squared away at home, and then head off to Northern California for the Holidays.  In between all that I have to pick up a few more gifts, buy new glasses, have a doctors checkup, get new tires, get my brakes checked, and all the other normal stuff related to keeping myself fed, clean, etc... 

(Its the keeping yourself "etc..." that really takes up all the time)

Anyway, I fear in the midst of all that this blog might get forgotten if I don't take steps to prevent it.  So rather than try to keep up in all the chaos what I'm going to do is to put up a few pre-written posts that I've been saving for a rainy day. 

As you might have noticed below my blogroll is empty.  The reason for that is I wanted to spend some time on the sites that I chose to put there and tell a little bit about why I chose to single them out. 

I chose to limit the number to the top 10 blogs that I think are the most worth sharing with other people.  So over the next week or so, while I'm trying to catch up with life, I'll be automatically posting one post per day which features the blog I'm adding that day and why I like it.

In saying that I'd just like to make the point that there are several great blogs out there that I really enjoy but which didn't make the list.  For example, I think every post that Rob Conery makes is pure gold but he isn't included on the list because he tends to disappear for a few weeks (totally understandable) and in trying to determine my top 10 blogs that cost  him.  Another example is Scott Hanselman whose blog I think is great but who also tends to post a lot about his personal life.  I enjoy those posts but if you haven't been reading his blog for a while and aren't invested in him that could be a draw back which is why he's not on the list.  And so on...

Anyway, I hope anyone who might be reading this enjoys the next week or so worth of posts.  For me not having to worry about abandoning this blog will do wonders for my sanity.  (or at least what is left of it)