Short Echidne Thoughts on the Business of Blogging

1.  You know all those times when you need to complete an action online by clicking either "continue/publish/next/agree" button or its opposite, which is usually "cancel" or "delete" or "back?"

Please, kind developers, standardize the relative locations and colors of those buttons.  For instance, always have the "cancel" button on the right or the left of the other button, preferably in red or some other eye-catching color.  Do that EVERYWHERE.

You can guess why this has gotten my goat.  Granted, to double-check the location of the two buttons doesn't take very much of my time, but when you add up all the time all the net users spend on that, well, we just might have figured out how to get to relative world peace with those days and years.

2.  Brand.  That's not the hot iron mark on cattle ears (poor things).  It's what I'm supposed to have for this blog.  Like a mission statement, it's part of the business speak invading all sorts of areas.  If you don't have a brand people don't know what they are going to get and your message is not strong. 

Here's where my dark side enters.  I will NOT do whatever I'm supposed to do.  I have no idea why but I was like that inside the egg.  So I struggle with myself about the necessity of having a brand and other similar topics (such as developing a Twitter presence!  like a ghostly specter in the distance, howling away?), and the more I struggle the more scattered my topics and the worse my writing.

It could be an inner demon.  I may need lice treatment against those!

3.  Content producer.  That's another red flag waved at my inner bull (why not an inner angry cow?).   It sounds like an industry selling beautiful gift wrap and bows and -- only as an afterthought -- something to stuff into the box.  It could be shredded newspaper as long as it gets lots of clicks which produce lots of advertising revenue.

I understand why all that happens.  But I'm not some fu**ing content producer.  If you don't get my ire, suppose that mothers and fathers were routinely called child producers.

All that is grumpy writing.  The real reason is that I have to go out there, and out there consists of snow, snow and more snow.  If you never hear from me again remember that I loved you.