Blogussion » blog tools

Typewith.me for Beneficial Collaboration on Writing Content & Any Projects

Derek Jensen — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:49:43 +0000

Having another mind, editing, walking through, or just foreseeing what you are doing that is explained in writing is very beneficial. We can co-write a blog post, work on an ebook together, or draft up and then finalize some ideas for the next project. This can all be done using Typewith.me. You just have to do is decide what to collaborate on or share to either your inner circle or another audience.

I see Typewith.me as a tool for us bloggers to work with other bloggers, work on side or totally new projects, or even do creative things with our audience.

For instance what I’ll be doing on UniqueBlog is have a weekly session where its basically a time for anyone who wants to to all write a post together. This is just one way I see Typewith.me helping us bloggers and our community.

Below is a 1 minute video covering the specific functions of this tool.

Now, let’s get more in-depth on the benefits and uses for us bloggers.

Writing Content

Co-writing a Post

There seems to be a trend for multi-author blogs. Many bloggers do face the battle of consistency and this would be a problem that could be fixed by having multi-authors.

Well, what if you were to write a post together with another author or contributor. Here you could share your ideas, stories, and thoughts and mix them all in to create one unique, but very useful post.

You can do this with Typewith.me by simply inviting the other writer via email and you will then work in real-time. This feature can also be used for tossing around ideas and coming up with drafts.

You could also co-write an ebook or any other type of product together.

An Editing Chatroom

If you don’t want to write with someone else, write a post where people post all of their thoughts and chat about them. This will entice community involvement and give them a sense of involvement into the making of your blog.

You’ll have to just invite more people

You will be amazed how good of a community response you will get if you setup an event that was like an editing chatroom. This could also be done along with live video, a webinar, or an actual conference setting.

There is also a chat feature plus the writing area so people can leave feedback on what just you or everyone is typing.

You’ll be able to see who contributed what, which will spur more discussion.

Projects & Throwing Around Ideas

Every time I’ve started a blog, I’ve wanted to start another but have prevented from doing so while talking and collaborating my thoughts with others. These are my friends and my inner circle or what I call your network of “weak ties“.

So, the idea I kept tossing around was whether to have multiple blogs or not. This whole process was done with Skype, but could have been done with Typewith.me especially if my or your inner circle wanted to do a project together.

Who Said What and When?

Yes, you will be able to record and know right away who said what and when. Many times when having conversations with each other you forget what they said and how their conversation was placed in context during a certain time.

Everything is on a timeline and recorded

Say you want to start a project with a few others. You invite them, you discuss and talk about it. Then, you can always add to this discussion or edit your input (changing your mind about certain items) and all of this will be recorded.

Getting Somewhere

The biggest thing is to reach a decision or something that is more finalized when working or coming up with a project.

Typewith.me in the long run will save you time and will allow for you to really make smart mistakes if what you end up doing turns out to be one.

Going Back, Editing, and Fixing for Future

Its the thought that having all conversation being recorded and put into a timeline format. Say you come up with another idea, but its similar to your previous one that you already created with Typewith.me and collaborated on with your inner circle.

You can return to the original and look at what was discussed, fixed, improved, and still left with unanswered questions.

Putting the Tool to Use

What will be your use?

Typewith.me is completely free and even though it seems very simple in terms of function (writing in real time for collaboration) the tool can be used in many ways.

This is the ultimate blogging tool for collaboration and idea-making.

Eliminate Distractions & Write Constant Quality Content with Ommwriter

Derek Jensen — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:00:03 +0000

Distractions are everywhere. Most of them are when you’re connected to the web or just being connected to your computer. What if I told you that you could eliminate these distractions? I’ve noticed whenever I am writing content for my blog and readers I tend to veer off. Everytime this happens the quality of my writing weakens. There’s a tool that fixes this.

It’s called Ommwriter. All it is is an application for Mac (sorry PC peeps) that just displays a text box, a suttle background, some ambient sounds in the background, and no ability to view or go to any other applications (unless of course you decide to exit out).

That’s really all it is, but the benefits of installing it are more worth talking about.

Before Opening Ommwriter

Prior to opening Ommwriter gather all the needed items that inspired or drove you to write whatever post you plan on writing. Grab a pair of earphones, a notepad with a pencil or pen, and settle yourself into a suitable working environment.

Then, say goodbye to any social networking sites, instant messaging like Skype, and any websites that you may have been looking at. This will all disappear or be hidden so you can focus on what’s in your mind on what you want your readers to know.

All of these items will only increase the effectiveness of Ommwriter and the chances for you to bring out that quality content.

Editing Then Formating

The process of writing quality content is very simple.

You come up with an idea, brainstorm a few things, start writing or editing on a document, format that document and make any adjustments, then hit publish.

Now, when I say “editing” I’m saying that you’re writing a draft that really just needs tweaked and formatted after you’re done.

Even though the process of writing seems simple, the true reality of the process gets disoriented. How? Soley by you and the choices you make. Mainly these are distractions, but it’s also because you go out of order or back and forth between two seperate steps. All this act does is make you happy because you’re doing your favorite parts of the writing process. Just know that more and more you are getting away from the quality of your content.

Focusing on the Quality of Your Content

It’s about your readers. It’s about inticing them. It’s about entertaining them. It’s about helping them. However you are striving to impact your readers it all comes down to the quality of your content.

As I’ve said before in a post called, Stop Blogging About Blogging Already, too many bloggers are saying the same things related to the blogging about blogging niche. Yes, everyone can be unique in their voice but your readers will know how good the actual content is and that will be the deciding factor on how you truly standout. Remember content is king.

Higher Opportunity to Over-deliver to Your Readers

When you limit your focus on just editing and not worrying about formatting are what links to include where, you dig deep into how this post will be effective or benefitial too many.

There’s a higher opportunity for you to over-deliver to your readers. By over-delivering you are sticking to the core of the post, but also effectivily branching off into solid points.

You want readership. You want discussion. You want to help them. Do yourself and everyone a favor and over-deliver. Ommiwritier creates that chance more than ever.

Formating and Developing Your Post Headline

Once you have your content written for a particular post, you save your document as a .txt file and then copy and paste that right into wordpress where you now start your post.

Here is now what you can focus on to make the quality content you’ve just written really stand out and get your readers engaged into what you’re saying to them:

Effective post headlines
Bolding, italizing, underlining, or any other formating such as blockquotes
Adding images or video related to the content
Rereading what you have and adjusting
Inserting links to add to your content

After installing this I’ve seen my writing time being more effective and producing better content.

An example of this actual post on Ommwriter

We get so caught up in certain specifics that would make up the post or get distracted by diverting away from writing, which all takes away from our content quality.

Even if you have a Mac or don’t, what are your thoughts on using something like Ommwriter to write quality content?

Google Analytics: Metrics Worth Tracking

Seth — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:44:18 +0000

Understanding the importance of statistics for your blog is an important step in developing your blog. The best way to find success is by measuring performance and striving to improve it.

Now do not get me wrong, spending hours every day looking at them will not help you. That is too much time spent on numbers and not enough for promoting and writing new content. Those elements are still the most important part of blogging. But learning how to intelligently improve your blog will help you strategically target your next moves towards success.

What Blog Statistics Program Should I Use?

The first thing to understand is that there are differences in statistical analyzation programs. These differences are in source of information and quality of statistics.

The source of information refers to whether the statistics are coming directly from your hosting service, for example Hostgator offers statistics for every blog they host. Another source of statistics is through third party software like Google’s Analytics. Although both sources have their pro’s and con’s we must weigh the options.

Hosting Service Analytics – Using the service your host provides is an easy way to track your statistics and measure your traffic on your blog. For some this information will be difficult to find and once found the numbers might be very confusing in their raw formats. The one significant benefit of hosting analytics programs is the quality of statistics. Although in their raw form, the numbers are most correct directly through the host service.

The reason being that any third party metric tracking system like Google’s Analytics or Sitemeter may lose some of your numbers through the process of extracting data to their third party site. This occurrence is not significant but something to be aware of.

Google Analytics – Now I could put Sitemeter or many other programs in this position but in my opinion Google’s system is the easiest to understand, prettiest to view, and most relevant to my needs.

I recommend Google Analytics for easy tracking, viewing and analyzing all of your blog’s statistics. The process of inputting their code into your blog is simple (matter of fact most themes have a place to put them built in, like Thesis theme) and using the site is very easy.

I personally like the visibility of the statistics. If you can see the numbers in graphs and charts they actually start to mean something to your blog. So let’s get started with learning some of the less known ways to use Google Analytics.

Metrics: Google Analytics

Looking at the Dashboard is the easiest way to see what is happening on your blog. Metrics are divided into 3 major categories: Visitors, Traffic Sources, and Content. The Dashboard provides a very nice line graph, pie chart, map overlay, and some raw numbers to make a quick analysis very easy on a daily basis.

About once a week or every other week you should conduct a more thorough analysis of your blog. Statistics can tell you a lot about your blog. It will show you what is working and what needs improvement. It may also help you manage your time better. So let’s dive in with some specific metrics.

Visitors: Trending

An important function I use when analyzing data for my blogging tips blogs is trending. This just means the general tendency or direction in which your blog is going. You might be interested in that just a little bit.

To use this statistic well focus in on a few less common metrics, Absolute Unique Visitors, Average Pageviews, and Time on Site. The other metrics you are probably familiar with, but these metrics will help you guage your improvent and focus on 2 elements necessary for blogging success. New vistors and depth of visits. Using these statistics you can find how your blog is doing in producing unique views and how long people look at your blog. If the time is short they probably are not really reading your articles.

Visitors: Loyalty

Working with Trending, Loyalty helps you to get a good feel for what your visitors are actually doing. It is important to be open to seeing things the way the visitor does. Otherwise improvements are difficult to make. Using loyalty you can gauge that if the depth of visit is short, 1 pageview, then your navigation needs to increase. Or perhaps the keywords your articles are being found on are not what the reader is expecting.

More Google Metrics

There are dozens of metrics Google offers in their services. Start to explore them and find out what you can learn about your readers and their habits on your blog.

Due to depth this topic needs to be discussed properly, a guide is being produced to follow-up this topic with detailed information about the different metrics. It will explain what the metrics mean and how you can improve your site through using them.

Look forward to this next guide to Google Analytics where we will discuss step by step how to install and use each metric. Using a statistics program to gauge your blog’s success is important to also understanding your blog’s needs. So explore Google Analytics, get to know the statistics, ask questions in the comments, and prepare for an in-depth analysis of each statistical metric on Google Analytics.