PolyBlogging

This post covers the philosophy and basic principles of polyblogging as I see them:

• write once use many,
• reframe and crosslink,
• be your own blog network, and
• turn every good idea into a series.

I’ll cover each of these below.

Write once use many
One of the principles of Permaculture is that no thing should be used for only one purpose. In The Permaculture Approach to Information, I wrote:

Imagine a fence dividing your chook (chicken) pen from your orchard in a suburban back yard. You grow beans and other edible creepers along the fence. The creepers get a little overgrown so that the chooks can use them for shelter. You eat the chooks and the eggs they produce. You eat the beans. You use the manure they produce in the compost that feeds the next generation of beans. The chooks go into different yards that contain the vegetable beds lying fallow for next year. You supply the chook-feeding and -watering labor. Everything feeds everything else. Everything contributes, and everything benefits. It is one big holistic system, and fractally expands in scope to include every energy transaction on the whole planet.

So what have chooks got to do with blogging? Nothing - but that they are a good metaphor for a post that feeds off your energy (to produce) and contributes to your blog. What I’m suggesting here is that no post should contribute to just itself - it should contribute to the blogosphere in general (by sharing the link love) and to your own blog network. Additionally, you should probably aim to add value to your niche.

Reframe and Crosslink
This is an extension of the write once use many principle - it makes it easier to create meaningful links that add value.

There are two ways that people will find your blog: through a referral (via a search engine or a social networking friend) or through discovery. By crosslinking between your blogs, you are increasing the prospect of people going from one blog to another (and I know that this sounds like a no-brainer - stay with me). When they find a new blog they may subscribe.
Reframing is about taking an idea and looking at it anew while maintaining a semantic link - in blogging terms, there should be at least one point that clearly joins the two posts. Here’s an example: all bloggers run blogs. If they are interested in promoting their blog, they will often seek the advice of metabloggers (that is, people who blog about blogging). It is not hard to reframe a discussion on the art of bioblogging/mommyblogging/business blogging/you name it in a way that justifies a link to a metablog. Similarly, in metablogging, it is not hard to talk about specific examples of what works and what doesn’t from any other blog - so long as the link adds value to the story.

And what defines value? Here is my definition/law of link acceptability:

Any link is acceptable to the reader provided it is relevant in context and adds clear value.

And I went on to write:

OK, so I didn’t invent this - other folks have been saying similar things for years about web links in general - but the title sounds cool

“Relevant in context” means that it makes sense - the linked material is directly related to the whole post in general, and the particular point suggested by the linked text. There are no unmet expectations or surprises. “adds clear value” means that the link is not there for the sake of the link but actually adds value to the reading experience. This applies equally to blogrolls, links within posts, and links within social linksharing applications.

Anyone disagree?

Be your own blog network
Blog networks are a good idea - a group of people with a common goal (or a company with a consistent policy) that share resources and advertising across multiple blogs.

I run 20 or so blogs from one hosting account - it is an advanced plan, sure, but the resources are there to cover periods of high traffic when a post is Dugg or Stumbled and there is a traffic spike. It costs me $20 a month, not a lot more than a single blog plan with an Australian ISP.

Apart from sharing resources I also share links through the reframe and crosslink principle. It does sound a little self-gratifying, but I can share link love with myself any time I want I try not to overdo it.

Turn every good idea into a series
I believe that the best muser posts are written in essay style - they are a coherent argument for a particular point of view, with an introduction, a set of structured points, and a concluding summary. If each of the argument points is good enough to support the point of view, then chances are it will be good enough as a post in its own right within a series.

This post is, strangely enough, the genesis of a series. Self-referentiality is a fine thing in post writing as well as in humour

Keep an eye out for the series.