1) Original Posts: Sure, there are blog posts you could call “original” articles. Usually, though, these means telling a personal narrative rather than discussing a current idea, topic or news item. Why? Because as soon as you are talking about news or anything outside of your personal life you will inevitably be repeating information. Still, this applies to a rather limited set of blogs and blogging styles or one-off articles.

2) Collections of Information: One of the best ways to add value for a reader is to collect information (whether in list format or otherwise) in one place. In this case the creative act comes not in the discovery but in the presentation of said information. Take the Discovery or History channels for example: they typically are not showing you anything you couldn’t find out in some obscure source or possibly even a textbook. Still, many of us don’t have time to research topics so we tune in to regularly scheduled programs for a dose of information on a particular topic. Is the information completely original? Not typically, but it is presented in a new and easily legible format.

3) Connecting Readers to Resources: A great way to bring value to your readers is to bring your readers to other resources that they value. This is often something that is done in conjunction with the above strategy. You can create an article collecting a variety of information on a single topic and link intelligently so that readers can learn more about the specific aspect of that topic that they are interested in. Again, you aren’t creating entirely original content but you may be pointing readers to other original (or not!) content in a unique way.

So, while it might not be terribly useful to simple reword what someone else writes about on another blog you can add value without being the first and only person to know about something. The question you should always ask yourself, though, is whether what you are doing adds value for your readers – whether it gives them something that they couldn’t find (at least not as easily, quickly and legibly) somewhere else.

How does an article go from being just another post on a blog to a web-wide sensation overnight? I would argue that at their core most of these strike the right blend of fascinating, novel and mainstream: they are compelling enough to grab your attention, strange enough that they present new information and yet of general enough interest to have a broad appeal to many people who frequent the world wide interwebs. Here are 12 great examples that illustrate these principles in more ways than one and are incredibly entertaining to boot!

LifeHackery’s 99 Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Objects another great ‘themed’ post built around items that everyone has in their home – what better way to draw readers immediately than to point out that boring old objects laying around might have strange secondary uses? Some of the particularly clever/innovative ones come complete with pictures which provide a great initial boost to the article.

OddOrama’s 5 Brilliant Reverse 419 Scams is immediately understood by anyone with an email account, because we have all gotten those strange scammers who offer us billions if we just help them out, right? Better yet, this article shows how people got back at those scammers we all love to hate. Images help break up the content visually and provide some interest on top of the text.

DarkRoastedBlend’s Art of Extreme Sleeping is an excellent example of a themed image collection that, no doubt, started when the author found one such image and became determined to find more related images. There isn’t much text, but not much is needed: the title is self-explanatory and the work of assembling the post comes mostly in the form of finding great photographs for it.

DeputyDog’s 13 Worst Fake Accents in Film taps into classics that many people have seen, and is sufficiently comprehensive (as a list of thirteen) to include something for everyone. Moreover, who hasn’t cringed when they heard a truly terrible accent from a famous actor whose nationality is painfully obvious? Of course, no such post would be complete without a series of YouTube videos as examples.

Ecoble’s Man-Made Mexican Island Paradise conjures the age-old idealized goal of living somewhere on one’s own private island. Pictures and videos help fill in the details for sure, but the article taps in on a more basic level to a combination of popularly held dreams and extreme oddities. After all, it isn’t every day you read about an island built from a quarter-million plastic bottles!

OneMansBlog’s How I’d Hack Your Week Passwords hits you on the head with the first sentence: it addresses the reader directly and in a highly alarming way. A lot of us realize in the back of our minds that we have weak and possibly hackable passwords but we tend to try not to think about it. This post explains how some strategies are weaker than others, helping (after scaring) the readers.

WallStreetFighter’s 11 Photographs that Look Photoshopped but Aren’t ties into the classic debate about images found online: are they edited or are they real? Well, this collection of images highlights the fact that images that seem impossibly surreal may actually have been created by unconventional means and yet may not have been edited after the fact – you just never know.

PocketGadget’s 10 Accidental Inventions again ties together the basic argument of this article: that web-wide successful articles and blog posts involve elements of the familiar and the unknown, tied together under a common theme that everyone can relate to. Some of these inventions you will be familiar with, others undoubtedly not and all are quite interesting.

EliteFeet’s Eaten by Trees immediately conjures a seductively strange and implausible mental image – one that begs readers or potential link-clickers to reach forward and find out more. And when they look? A potent and somewhat humorous set of illustrated examples of the passage of time, with objects being overrun by trees – a seeming paradox since trees are some of the slowest-growing things on Earth.

CapnWacky’s 20 examples of Unusual eBay Feedback really hits home for most any mainstream web user. Who hasn’t used eBay or a similar site and checked feedback to see what a seller’s or buyer’s reputation is? So readers can instantly relate to the content and yet it is probably funnier than any similar content they read on eBay (and they almost certainly have never seen so many strange ones in one place).

WebUrbanist’s 7 Abandoned Wonders of America brings home a strange point: that even in the wealthiest of countries in the world there are buildings that remain abandoned and unused. For American readers this is perhaps a strange awakening, though many of the locations are in major cities that people are familiar with and maybe didn’t know contained abandonments.

AllSux’s collection of strange articles that went all over the internet … oh wait, that’s this article?! Well, it is impossible to say for sure what will happen with it, but it does fit the formula I argued for: you can of course relate to popular articles on interesting subjects, the topics chosen are of general interest to web readers and hopefully you haven’t seen some or all of these before so this post contains new information. Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed this article feel free to pass it along.

And can you blame them? There is a lot of good content on the web, so an introduction that is catchy (a question, little known fact or amazing statistic) is key. If you can, make your article into a list whether or not you envisioned or even initially wrote it in list format.

If there is any way to do it, be sure to lead with an image. Have more than one image in your article? Then lead with the best one you have. People will read the bold print of the headline, see the image and on that basis will (likely) decide to stay or go.

To maintain visual interest, it can be helpful to mix images in through a post to provide relief from the text and to keep the reader interested. Another way to do this is to provide bullet points, indentations or other visual breaks to relieve the monotony.

But wait, you found something interesting to write about, but it’s short and self-contained … it could never go viral, right? Well, in some cases a single subject post can succeed if it is provocative, newsworthy or original enough. However, in many cases you can take a seemingly solitary item and make it into a collection.

But before you jump all the way into researching your article: check social news, networking and bookmarking sites to see if your seemingly brilliant idea has a shot on them. A subject may be interesting to you but you need to know if a broader audience will go for it.

OK, so you tried it and it didn’t go as planned. What did you do wrong? Well, you might have a hard time finding that out. You should be sure to check the comments on your site and on social media sites to see what the public’s reaction was. Also, it might seem scary, but you can always contact someone in your niche who has success writing viral content and see if they will give you feedback.

For one thing, they are long, cumbersome, awkward and hard to remember at times. They also tell any web-savvy visitor that you are doing whatever you can to come up on searches – that your goal is traffic and that you’re ‘working the system’ to get it. To people like me at least that is a warning light, a red flag that you might have poor content you are simply trying to dress up with targetted Google-friendly keywords.

There is another thing, though, that a lot of people don’t think about: the prestige of the domain name. A short, quirky and memorable domain is hard to think of and many or most are taken. Anyone can go out and find three generic words to string together (e.g. BlogHomeZone.com or MedicalTreatmentSolutions) but few can find 5 to 8 letter domains that aren’t a jumble of consonants and vowels. In short, when people see a shorter domain name they are cued into the owner’s credibility in one (or all) of three ways:

(1) they can see the owner spent time and thought coming up with a creative name and thus that they have a personal investment in the site

(2) they understand that the owner has paid something for the domain and, as in the point above, that the author consequently has an investment (monetary in this case) that they wish to protect

(3) they realize that the owner has probably had the domain for a long time and thus has already invested considerable time and effort into the site

These kinds of things may not be readily apparent to a new blogger or website developer but that is precisely the point: they are common pitfalls made when people purchase their first domains. Are you stuck with a domain you don’t like? It might be best to learn from it and move on. Still picking one? Think about how tech-savvy individuals will perceive it and let that guide you in your purchase!

But how do you come up with a branded domain? Well, you could take the approach of this site and simply go for something short, random and fairly spellable that doesn’t tie you to any particular niche. Another good strategy is to think of main keywords in your niche and change endings/beginnings, spelling or add suffixes and prefixes like this one and many others.

Things to keep in mind each time you search:

(1) Vary the suffixes/prefixes, maybe add something on both ends

(2) Change the spelling, replacing, removing or adding letters

(3) Think outside the box for uncommon but still niche-related terms

(4) Keep spellability in mind but remember it isn’t everything (e.g. Flickr)

(5) Memorability and brevity are key: keep it interesting and short

Personally, if I have a particular one in mind I just jump to GoDaddy and do a search to see if my idea is taken. Let’s say, though, that your first choice (e.g. AllSucks.com) is taken. Avoid going to the .net or .org options unless they fit the site (e.g. an internet-related site might do well on a .net or an environmental or non-profit site could work as a .org). Instead, look for other variants in the spelling and so on. If you’re on a roll, use a bulk domain search tool instead.

Of course, you often won’t be the first one trying to do this. You want to make a movie review site, let’s say, and aren’t sure where to start. You might try things like Movified, Cineviews, or other combinations that speak immediately to the subject matter only to find they are all taken. Don’t get frustrated and give yourself a break then try again later – if it hasn’t already been taken that perfect match is probably going to survive a few more days! Also, don’t forget, you can ultimately brand anything, but some things are easier than others.

It all started with a blurb on EcoGeek about a 007 Solar Pen Camera spying device. I wanted to submit the link to Digg then noticed their blurb was via TreeHugger, which in turn added two new links: ChinaVision and Dvice. The latter link traced to UberGizmo, which linked to UberReview that in turn linked to 7Gadgets (an appropriate 7th link in the ongoing chain). Most of these sites didn’t link to the ChinaVision (original) site, and only one linked to 7Gadgets where this information apparently first hit the blogosphere.

The fact that this last source didn’t link another source doesn’t even mean, of course, that it is the last source in the chain. Maybe this is just where the chain got broken because one author didn’t cite his source. So where did this come from? Which one should you link to or submit to Digg? Who knows. What does this mean for the blogosphere? Is it natural and healthy sourcing or a sign of things getting out of control?

via allsux

Other thoughts … let’s see here … Gil has to be one of the hardest-working bloggers I know, and a great guy to boot … he’s building up real momentum on his site and I highly recommend checking it out. There are a lot of nifty Diggers (yup, been spending a lot of time on Digg) I should call out as well but I’ve been thinking of saving that for a future post that highlights Diggers by niche.

Oh, yes, I just got back from Chicago where I flew in a small plane for the first time – with my brother (of all people) at the wheel. There’s also nothing quite like going from Seattle to Chicago to remind you just how big a big city truly is, but I digress. There’s also nothing like going shopping on Black Friday to stir up images of the opulent Roman Empire before its collapse!

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks the Sarah Silverman Show is just plain great. The industrious Mu has created a cool resource for Stumblers. I’ve become completely addicted to TreeHugger when I’m not on WebUrbanist. If you’re a blogger and you haven’t signed up for Romlet and/or Peopleized I’m telling you: you’re missing out!

I’ve been debating writing an intro-to-Digg article for Diggn00bs pointing out some of the veteran Diggers by ‘niche’ … think that could be an interesting read, but I’m sure to miss (an therefore piss off) some Digger or another. I’ve also been toying with writing a post about how this is the most important page on Digg.com. Believe it or not, that’s where the big decisions are made, which I’ll be sure to explain at some point ;) Speaking of Digg, Verge and I got a rather entertaining mention on TheDrillDown recently, though we still plan to hijack the show entirely soon.

Now for some strict entertainment. Here are some beautiful time lapse photographs and videos which should go niceley with a side of other cool art in motion. You can always count on the Best of Craiglist to provide things like the survival of the fittest M&Ms, just like you can always count on religious fanatics to barricade themselves in caves until the world ends. However, more than all of the above, you can rely on WallStreetFighter to provide you with a dose of crass offbeat humor.