Hey gang! It's been a while since I dropped in for a mad ramble! I guess if you're a follower, you probably already knew that, and if you're not a follower, you probably don't care (not even a little?).
I'm struggling with whether to make this a structured post that informs and enlightens, or just a stream of consciousness blab. It really slows down the stream when I have to correct the spelling of consciousness three times.
Guess which form is winning?
...anyway
Some of you may have been wondering (if not, you're going to find out anyway) why a handsome, young, tech-savvy entrepeneur like myself doesn't have a more 'business' oriented web presence. Well, if you'll calm down and give me minute, I'll talk about that.
Plain Old Lazy
Back in '93-'95, when the web was some fledgeling bits on the phone line that your parents couldn't understand, I was in it up to my knees. My brief stay at college happened right across the river from MIT, which meant the ping was so low I could chat with guys over there in almost real-time. Back then, and up until about '98 or so, I could write in HTML just like I'm typing this out now... without a second thought. Unfortunately, it seems that these skills did not age well in my mental storage locker. Unlike spanish, which people might still understand even if you're speaking it badly, programming languages need a certain level of precision to be properly understood.
If any programmers are reading this and want to fight about whether or not HTML or any other markup is a programming language or not, we can go ten rounds in the comments. We can also fight about whether you're called programmers or coders. If you insist on being called a hacker, I'll knock you straight out. If you remember what a phreaker is, I'll share some of my best weed with you.
But back to the point...
I could add a bunch of flashy self-promoting gifs to each post by dusting off those old skills, but I'm just not that motivated to. I already had to read a refresher of basic markup to add bold and italic (and other attention-getters) to my TEXT! Why? Because I can't be bothered to click on all those buttons in my editor. I'm a keyboard warrior, not a mouse warrior. I ain't got time right now to go through all that again with the pictures.
Now, if that laziness translates into a cleaner, more streamlined blog experience for you, dear readers, is that such a bad thing?
Affiliate Links are Sketchy
I suppose plenty of people have had luck with various affiliate chains, but I just can't bring myself to trust them. This extrapolates (do you like that word?) to me not trusting people who post a lot of affiliate links at the bottom of their posts. For that matter, a long list of links to the exact same post on other platforms does not exactly scream original content. I see online promotional affiliates the same way I see 'local' news affiliates... The more affiliated they get, the more they all just have the same message. Homogoneous messages do not particularly interest me. If I see a dozen affiliate links at the bottom of your post, I can't help but wonder who really wrote what I just read.
Not to mention, a lot of these promotional circle(jerks) have at least one scammer in the chain, and what kind of friend would I be if I invited that extra headache into the lives of my dear readers? If I drop a link, I like to think I attach a certain amount of trust that you can click it and not have to change all your passwords.
Got a community or product that you love and want to promote in your posts? Fine. One at a time please.
No, good citizens, you won't find that kind of garbage in my posts. I'll try to fill each line with 100% Grade B or better info-tainment.
Too Much of the Same Thing
Speaking of the flashy gifs (remember, from earlier?), I see that a lot of people are really proud of their home-made artwork with their clever online handles and photo-shopped (I'm a GIMP man myself) pictures with formatted text. Good for you guys, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of the ones that I make too, but I just don't feel the desire to share that picture at the beginning, middle, sidebar, post-script, end, and footer of every post. I mean, mom was proud of my quiz scores, but she didn't make 10 copies to hang on the fridge.
And no, changing the color palette doesn't make it a whole new artwork.
Someday, I'll have a nice ArborVilla banner graphic that I'll drop tastefully at the end of my posts, like dandays or flemingfarm. I don't feel the need to tag them here, because I'm pretty sure they know they're already doing things right. If you're reading this, thinking it might apply to you, finding the motivation to do better begins with finding the motivation to search for those guys and look at an example of advertising artwork well done.
I'm not a beggar
I have a Bitcoin wallet. I have a Coinbase account that acts as a wallet for a whole bunch of crypto currencies. Hell, I think even my paypal account has crypto wallets now. I have a wallet in my pocket too, when I'm wearing pants, but I'm not going to hold it out and ask you to put money in it every time we have a conversation. I'm definitely not going to list a dozen other ways you could pay me if you say you're short on cash.
I'll take free money, but I'm not inclined to ask for it. I don't put my posts together expecting votes or tips or any other financial reimbursement. Nobody comissioned these things I write, or photograph. I provide this education and/or entertainment for free. I'm a firm believer in freely sharing ideas. I understand why some people are not, especially if your ideas are your only marketable skill. I'm fortunate enough to make all the income I need from about a half a year of my labor, so I give away these ideas.
Even when I made money as a street performer, I didn't lay out a hat or leave my guitar case open for people to toss money in. I would just stand there and play, and when people would request a song, I would charge them to play the request.
The way I see it, if anybody reads one of my posts and finds it so life changing that they feel driven to send me a monetary reward, they'll ask where to send it. I don't want people to look at the end of my posts like the donation plate at the end of church.
Of course, if you're feeling charitable, you can send Bitcoin to 186m5STGg4iiqRT8y1H4PfjrpQasLGxqdZ
I prefer Hive though. Just tip me all your Hive.
It's Just Kinda Monotonous
While my style may not change an awful lot, I try to make sure that my substance is original. I don't mean simply 'not plagiarised', everything I do is original work. I mean that I want each post to be something you haven't seen from me already. That's getting harder for me, now that I have two years of post history to check things against. It is something I strive toward, though, and it's hard to keep things original if I'm ending each post with Tip Me, Follow Me, and Support Me and My Friends!
I know one or two people who might be thinking 'Then why the Hell do you promote your posts?' Well, calm down a minute and I'll talk about that.
Obviously, I don't promote every post. I don't want to see my shit in my feed all the time any more than you do. I never (intentionally) promote past the payout date, and seldom more than 2 days. When I do promote, it's either because I haven't posted in a while and want people to know I'm back (without spam tagging everyone) or because I think the post was good enough to grow my followers outside of whatever community I posted in.
If you feel I'm getting too spammy while promoting my posts, please like, follow, and reblog this post as much as you can. If you're spreading it around for me, I won't have any incentive to promote it. I might also stop if you drop a donation to the Bitcoin address given above.
Or tip me some Hive. That would be the surest way to get me to stop over-posting.
Thanks for reading, everyone who made it this far! The rest of you... good luck turning that promotional banner spam into an NFT!