Thoughts on ORBlogs 2.0.

I spent all last night trying to sleep and found myself instead thinking about what we can do to save ORBlogs. This sort of thing always makes my wife happy, because it’s just not challenging enough if I don’t toss and turn all night! It was interesting to wake up, and find that Jeff Martens had similar thoughts, and an equally difficult time sleeping. He posted them on The Silicon Florist. This morning there are even more blog posts and even KATU has weighed in on the matter.

I’d thought I’d add more of my thoughts to my previous post, hopefully in time that they are processed before the Beer&Blogs meeting tonight- which I can’t make.

Step 0: The Scoop

For those not quite up to The Speed of Twitter- or those lucky/smart enough to have been sleeping last night- ORBlogs, Paul Bausch underappreciated beauty for the last 5 years, is closing down. Read The Statement for more details. You can also hop over to the FriendFeed page started by J-P Voillequé and check out ORBlogs search results on Twitter.

Step 1: Talk with Paul

As a first thought, I think we all need to get together with Paul, whether in person or virtually (for those Oregonians who don’t live in PDX- Remember us?). This would be merely to thank him, if it comes to that, but mostly to see what his thoughts are on the matter. He’s been the man, alone, for 5 years and none of us really have any right- me least of all- to spout off about the future without his input.

If we’re going to rally funds and offer someone a Job, Paul should be candidate #1.

The other, most important reason for meeting with Paul is that there’s a lot of talk about other people carrying the torch of ORBlogs. I’m one of them, so I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing. I do feel, however, that if we are all going to finally Cowboy Up, and if that involves us getting some real-ish funding for a site manager, that Paul should be the person who gets this funding. If anyone is going to be offered the job of ORBlogs Admin, Paul should be candidate #1.

That is, if he wants the job. I’ve been in his position before, and there comes a time when even the prospect of glory doesn’t surpass the fatigue of battle. Paul might just want to end, and he might even be at the point where he couldn’t care less about the future of the site. I don’t blame him if he does, and wouldn’t qwell my admiration.

Looking at Twitter, I realize that mail server is probably crashing right now, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend sending him Yet Another WTF Message, but we should be responsive when he chimes in.

Step 2: Find a Point Person, Now

If Paul can no longer devote the time, or doesn’t want to be a person. It’s absolutely critical that we get a point person on this. I’ve seen scores of similar endeavors fail because “everyone could help.” There’s got to be someone who’s willing to take the responsibility and the risk associated with working with this- and at this point, both of those are likely to be more than Paul himself took on. Why? Because there are suddenly a couple hundred people needing management- interest is a double-edged sword.

ORBlogs needs someone, now, to work towards organizing it and getting it back live.

ORBlogs needs someone, now, to work towards organizing it and getting it back live. That someone will be unpaid, do a ton of work, get little, if any credit, then probably have to hand over the reigns to The Oregonian at some point with little more than a “Thanks for your cooperation.” Yeah, it sucks as an outlook, and it might not be the case, but it’s what’s likely.

So, here goes. I’ll do it. There are probably others who will too, but I’m formerly offering. I’m willing to take that risk.

Perhaps there should be a meeting place for other knee-jerk idiots like me to gather, so that we’re all in one place and can hash out who’s actually willing to be so stupid.

Step 2b: Make a Panel

Of course, I’m not exactly qualified to choose myself. There should be some sort of vetting process. The community is not structured enough yet, but there are names like Rick Turoczy that have enough history in the community to be a leader. A few people like him should get together and vet out this point person- mainly to make sure they are not a flake. It’s not a perfect solution, admittedly, but it’s a combat-tested approach that works. You get a couple of strong people with guns (reputations in this case) to say “He’s the new leader,” and I guarantee you that the majority of the people around you will say “You know, I was just thinking that he’d be a good leader!”

Whether it’s me or someone else, we need someon to stop The Buck. Seriously, I’ve tried it with the “Let’s all do everything” approach, and it always breaks down. Something bad happens and everyone suddenly finds their feet tremendously interesting. If there’s no responsibility, there’s no responsibility. Period.

Step 3: Get it Back Online

As Jeff Martens said, this is a critical first step for us. It may even be critical enough to skip Step 2, but I’d caution about headless leadership in an untested community. We’ve got people who’ve offered their servers, we’ve got Paul’s code. It would be trivial to get it back up and running at least at a state where it is functional-if-static.

All of the previous steps could be done within days, if The Speed of Twitter is any gauge.

Step 4: Market It, Seriously

None of us want to believe it. We all want to think that the programming alone will do the job, but ORBlogs needs to be marketed- Period. It’d be best if we can do it as lo-key and as simply as possible. K.I.S.S. is definitely our friend on this one. Here are a couple simple ways.

Linkbacks

Linkbacks are a pretty subtle and accepted way to give credit and kudos, and I think we should use them more. I first found out about ORBlogs because I saw the sweet, tiny little image on Silicon Florist’s sidebar. Is it too much to ask that a site link back? Here are some thoughts.

I found out about ORBlogs because I saw the sweet, tiny little image on Silicon Florist’s sidebar.

• Require a Linkback: One way is to require all blogs listed in the directory to link back to ORBlogs. A bit ham-fisted, perhaps, but useful. Even if it’s not required, it should be considered bad form to not link back.
• Improved Linkbacks: Positively Glorious! has a rotating headings banner that links through Feedburner. Lots of us have Feedburner accounts to manage blog stats. What I’ve speced out is a Feedburner-like image that links through ORBlogs. We could then compile local stats and feeds, while allowing people to maintain their Feedburner, or other stats. Sounds complicated, but it should be fairly trivial to code up.
• Improved Graphics: Personally, I think it’d be pretty cool to have an Oregon-shaped banner rotating my headlines- that would grab attention.

Funding

Yeah, I don’t want to talk about it either, but funding is key. Here’s something I thought of and posted during last night’s fray. What if there were a Blog2Blog funding campaign. I’m not into adds on my site, and I’m sure most people are with me on that. What if there were a way to do subtle and/or appropriate ad banners on blogs where the proceeds go to running ORBLogs? No-one except Google is making real money on these ads anyway, but the collective accounting could be enough. I’d work with that.

There’s one major problem with ad-based funding. In a word: Google.

One problem with ad-based funding… In a word: Google. It would be best if there were a non-Adwords, Oregon-centric way to create and distribute marketing. I don’t really care to advertise for some company in Arizona if I can post an ad for South Bank Kitchen and keep things local to Oregon. This may not be possible right now- but perhaps we can work through The Oregonian and other corporations to make it work.

Subscriptions

This is something that I think we should explore as a last resort. It would probably work, but it would have to be a seriously value-added site for me to be willing to pay to include Positively Glorious!. I’m not saying that as a part of the community, I’m saying that from the perspective of a blogger who’s just hit the scene. There has to be a lot of value to the service- and we have to provide an actual service- if people are going to pay.

Research

We need focused research in two areas that I can see. Funding sources/opportunities and scalability.

1. Steve Woodward of The Oregonian was in the middle of the Twitter discussion, and The O might get involved, but it shouldn’t stop- or necessarily be centered- there. There are a multitude of different venues that should be explored, not the least of which are the smaller regional media outlets. I’m in the middle of setting up a meeting with Hood River News on the very matter of BlogSpace and Internet Presence (I’m partial to Hood River, as you might notice). We shouldn’t ignore such possibilities.
2. Someone- again, this goes back to responsibility and management- should be actively searching for new blogs. Ideally, I wouldn’t have been able to have Positively Glorious! unlisted for these past two months, because the ORBlogs team/person would have hunted me down. We should respect people’s desire to not list; however, the value of ORBlogs would be in it’s being the central clearinghouse for blogs, so we need to find them and make the “clearinghouse” part be valuable enough.

Step 4: Back to Management

Having funding, improved research, and sweet looking linkbacks that are so cool that they make your grandmother want to start a blog just so that she can have the right to get the banner, we need to go back to management. We need someone to stop The Buck. It won’t work otherwise.

Accountability and responsibility need to be fundamental. This is easiest if someone is getting a paycheck.

An optimal system is someone paid, perhaps through, if not necessarily by, a larger institution such as The O. This would make the position responsible and accountable. The O, or anyone really, needn’t own or take responsibility of the site- partnerships and sponsorships could work. However, accountability and responsibility need to be fundamental. This is easiest if someone is getting a paycheck, and easier if that paycheck is from someone with the clout to give them the boot if they flake out.

Step n+1: Coding

This is where most of us get excited, so I won’t even say anything. As a programmer, I know that many of us have ideas about coding. Making it better is something that we can all get excited about. This is a double-edged sword and where leadership is necessary. That’s all I’ll say on that matter.

Disclaimer

Zeroth, I’m an ass. I’m an ass, you’re an ass, we’re all asses because we’ve taken something for granted, given little credit where it was due, and now- possibly due to guilt alone in some cases- feel like we need to do something. Don’t try to get out of this ass-ness, either. With notable exceptions like Rick Turoczy- we’ve all been doing our own thing, thinking that ORBlogs was going to hang around forever. I’m an ass, Paul, and I’m sorry I was. You deserve at least that much of an apology.

Firstly, let me freely admit that I have no more right giving advice on this matter than anyone else. Positively Glorious! Is not even listed with ORBlogs, both because it’s so new, and because it started as more of a business exercise than a personal blog (It’s personaly now, but that’s a recent change). Those are both reasons that I had chosen not to list it. However, as a programmer, blogger, and dedicated Oregonian, I do feel that I have just as much right as anyone to speak up. Community is only what we make it.

It is ORBlogs, not PDXBlogs, right?

Secondly, I’ll leave out the CV and merely say that many of us are qualified to do a lot, and not all of us live in Portland. It is ORBlogs, not PDXBlogs, right? Many of us coming out of the woods on this are just friends who haven’t met yet.

Thirdly, like a lot of people who’ve spoken up, I’m willing to put my time and money where my mouth is. If we had something together that can pay my mortgage, I’d quit my job tomorrow to make this shine. As I said before, that’s a risk I’m willing to take. Because I believe in this.

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