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.

Researching online can be a real pain and too many people default to Wikipedia when they aren’t sure where to look. These 25 Online Resources for Reliable Researched Facts are a good place to start looking beyond your standard haunts. There are many other places of course but this well-written list is a good one to bookmark for future use.

I saw this a while back but never posted about it: a great article on How to Find Weird Stuff on the Web by ReadWriteWeb. Even if you’re not looking for weird stuff per say this is a good introduction to alternative methods of finding information online.

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.

Does this mean I haven’t reflected on things? Have I been truly asleep for the last weeks, months or even years? Made decisions with forethought? Not really, no. Still, hindsight is (as they say) 20-20 and it’s amazing how clearly I now see what I have been doing and perhaps as importantly what I haven’t been doing.

Change isn’t always easy and it certainly isn’t always fun but I have to say that, at least on a good day, I believe it is usually for the best. At each critical juncture of my life a massive change led ultimately to growth, cheesy as it sounds. The philosopher Immanuel Kant credited his fellow philosopher David Hume with awakening him from his “dogmatic slumber” and I would credit recent events in my life with the same.

Now, Kant ended up far from Hume in any philosophical sense. In extremely simplified terms: he believed in the power of reason to ascertain truths about reality while Hume believed in what he could see, test and prove repeatedly. In short, Kant thought the mind was the answer to understanding reality while Hume thought experience was.

So what is the point? The point is this: whatever it takes to awaken you after a period of inaction or insufficient relfection may not be relevant to your subsequent realizations. In fact, I think it may often take you in a completely new direction you hadn’t anticipated and perhaps can’t fully grasp right away. For me, I’m reacting to changes and picking a new direction to a large extent not directly forced by these changes. Where will it lead? Who knows, but probably not where I expect.

At the same time, though, how to fix the cycle? There’s no way I’m reasonably going to get up at 3 PM and go back to sleep again 9 hours later. Instead, I’m going to push all the way through and make a day-and-a-half out of it. The plus side: lots of time and peace and quiet to work on things tonight and I’m (hopefully) sure to get a good night’s rest tomorrow.

I suppose this kind of sleep cycle can’t really go on forever … can’t let things get pushed back indefinitely over and over again. Still, even without a typical 9-to-5 day job I’m thinking it should be possible to at least roughly align myself with the daily drudgers. And if I still end up on a 2-to-10 sleeping schedule? Well, then I figure I’m on the right track to act like a ‘normal’ person and can still rub in the fact I get to sleep in late!

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

(7) Link lists have always been a crowd-pleaser, and are a great way to brain-dump cool stuff I find online.

(6) Apparently, a great deal of people approved of my suggestion that we use that horrible Chocolate Rain video in place of other forms of torture.

(5) Some semi-offtopic posts actually do pretty well, go figure. My comparison of three sites on which to write and make money was fairly popular.

(4) They say a pictures is worth a thousand words. Sadly, this picture turned out to represent thousands of lives.

(3) I admit I occassionally play fun little SEO (Search Engine Optimization) games, particularly if I want to outrank a scammy site (like Helium.com) or an article I disagree with. This was one of those cases.

(2) One of my personal favorites, this rant about Conservapedia was picked up by Fark.com which almost crashed this site, sending thousands of hits per hour!

(1) Sometimes simplicity is the best policy. Believe it or not, coming in at over 15,000 views, this image which requires no explanation is the most-viewed content of all time on All Sux dot Com!

I think my biggest shock in looking all of these up was the fact that most of my old content, which I remember thinking ‘wow, that got a lot of hits!’ is near the top of the pile. I guess I’m getting used to all the additional traffic, and old posts which got hundreds of hits seem small by comparison. Now I barely notice unless a post hits at least 5K (not on this site, but on other sites I write for) … am I getting jaded?

This kind of review is a great reminder to bloggers who wonder about their readers – why so few comments? Does anyone really care about this stuff? Sometimes it is those who you know the least who are the biggest supporters of a site you slave over. It is reviews by savvy bloggers with excellent content that remind me that blogging is worthwhile. In turn, reviewing a blog is a way to say thanks as well as an excellent way to introduce your blog to others!

Today, I’d like to thank John for his interview regarding Romlet and his continued support of the widget as well as his early adoption of it! I’d also suggest checking out Tamar‘s blog, particularly the most recent article regarding problems with Digg. Muhammad is really ramping up his new main site with a vengeance – check it out his interview with the creator of Digpicz.   Be sure to dig deep into Webomatica, you may find some old but applicable articles that are well worth reading. Andy has some great tips for bloggers, and has been helping me come up with monetization strategies for some of the sites I work on via e-mail – thanks Andy, hopefully my blogs get to the point where they can at least pay for their own hosting soon!

Finally, I just recently came across OneMansBlog – a really neat site about, well, everything. I have to admit I have a personal soft spot for blogs that don’t try to niche themselves too much. I recommend looking at the ‘top content’ widget on the right for some interesting stuff! Update: I also just came across a contest on OMB. Normally I don’t really go in for contests (this may be my first), but this one is pretty straightforward: link to OMB (I was doing that already!) and subcribe to the feed via email (that too!).

Since I might be away for a few days or longer, and posting just a few times a week tops, I wanted to make sure this top content roundup stays somewhat sticky – if you’re bored it might be fun to browse ;)

1) More Top Ten or Whatever Link Lists: Those seem to do pretty well overall – lots of people click the links, leave comments, etc… I suppose I should take that as a sign to keep making them!

2) More Random Images and Videos: These are also fairly successful – high comment ratio and fairly light reading if you just like skimming the interwebs for random weird stuff.

3) The Latest News on my Internet Stalker: Well, the guy won’t leave me alone, I figure there may be a few people who think it’s funny when I rant about this fact, but I’m probably wrong.

4) How I Keep Getting Posts to the Digg Front Page: That’s strangely right folks, somehow 4 of the last 6 articles I’ve submitted have hit the Digg front page. I have apparently figured out how to be a pro-Digger of sorts, and am happy to share my experience with others if people want to read about it.

5) Why Articles on Sites I Develop Keep Getting Dugg: 4 of he last 5 articles on the other blog I write for and develp have hit the front page, whether or not I submitted them – each getting 50,000 or more hits as a result, as well as secondary PR and traffic from incoming links. Want to know why?

6) Rants, Raves and Scandals: This site was founded primarily as a place to vent about random injustices on the web, from sites that rip people off to others that ban people without cause. Do you miss the good old days where I pushed the limits of the interwebs and then bashed sites when they bit back?

7) I Could Care Less What You Write: Yes, apparently there are some readers who hang on to this craptastic site no matter what it spews. Why is that? I’ll never know. Maybe it has to do with the entertaining randomness of it all, or perhaps there is truth and honesty in raw trains of thought.