Since 500 Startups - headed up by Dave McClure - announced its new Accelerator program, I've been following their blog where they've gotten the founders of their startups blogging about loads of different things. In one short summary, I think this strategy is absolutely brilliant.

It goes without saying that Dave McClure obviously has a lot of pull in the startup world, which is why 500 Startups have been successful in getting the kind of funding they have. Taking that a step further, as a result of Dave's reputation the media has been all over the launch of their Accelerator program and the 500 Startups blog is thus a perfect place for these startups to be getting some traffic (which is what they are getting by blogging on their).

But there's a flipside to this: this is also working out really well for 500 Startups. Content is still king and there's always a marketing strategy involved when you can create quality content, which is what the founders are doing. So in a very similar way in which we are using the audiences of the individual entrepreneurs contributing to Aboard Entrepreneurship (to generate traffic), 500 Startups is leveraging the experience and knowledge from their founders not only to build new businesses, but also to generate hype & traffic for the company. Brilliant!

WooThemes has just released the design (by Tim van Damme) which I used to promote & pre-sell my book, Rockstar Business. Having sold more than a 1000 copies already, I'd argue that the design served my needs pretty well. :)

I haven’t been doing a lot of writing lately (it’s kinda obvious when looking at my archives), but I’m happy to say that my book is finally complete and except a few formatting / designs things will be going to print soon. So hopefully I’ll get back to some regular posting soon, even though I’m still undecided about how I will be approaching my publishing next.

I love challenges (read: if you want to motivate me, challenge me), but I hate it when someone else’s thoughts on a topic challenges the decisions / strategies that I have made. Especially - if that is only recently so.

Also - if I didn’t love Spencer Fry so much, I’d be totally mad right now after reading his latest article on writing. Why? Because it challenges the goals that I set myself a few weeks ago…

The Decision (prior to Spencer’s article)

Whilst I had been enjoying my blogging on here (and it has to be noted, that I do publish longer pieces here, amongst the snippets), I’ve been thinking of ways that I could go back to more “traditional” blogging if we can call that.

I killed my previous (self-hosted, WordPress) blog in favour of moving to Tumblr, because I wanted something that made it easier - and not more difficult - for me to create content on a regular basis. So with regards to that, Tumblr is perfect as it allows me to publish anything of any size anytime that I want.

But Tumblr doesn’t really add “credibility” to me as an author, because the medium seems much less sophisticated (with the perception probably being that it is more a sharing platform, than a publishing one). If you have a look at Paul Graham’s writing for example, you get a sense of authority, credibility and experience. That’s what I wanted.

So the first attempt at moving in that direction was to publish my first book - Rockstar Business. But I couldn’t write a book every week / month, so that wouldn’t enable my passion for writing sufficiently.

I thus decided on a strategy where I will continue to Tumblr here, but also - from time to time - publish a compilation of articles on a specific (niche) topic which would be presented in a separate, unique way (i.e. not here). The plan was also to package those in more convenient formats (PDF, iPad, printed copy?) and sell it accordingly; thus creating another income stream too.

Not a bad idea, right? But then Spencer came along…

The Decision (after Spencer’s article)

My Tumblr now feels insignificant:

I think that in a way blogging is dead. I don’t consider spencerfry.com to be a blog. It’s a collection of essays. Blogging in the traditional sense — snippets of your thoughts on X, Y, and Z — has been replaced by Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. 

I don’t feel that this is your average Tumblr blog, since I do combine longer articles with the snippets that Spencer refers to here. But as mentioned above, it’s almost like the medium (and note: I do love Tumblr) isn’t conducive to the goals mentioned earlier.

Also not overly sure about selling my content anymore…

Information is meant to be consumed. It’s meant to be free. It’s meant to reach as many people as humanly possible, shared, and discussed. A wall around content — paid or otherwise — is destined to crumble. You need look no further than Jason Calacanis who when he really wants to get his voice out there re-posts his newsletter to his blog.

It’s always been a passion of mine to write and I love sharing my opinion in the hope that it sparks someone else’s mind into action. So in that regard, it’s important for me to have a well-trafficed and well-read blog, considering that I also use it as the pillar of my online presence. By thus putting part of my content (arguably my best content, as that would make “business sense”) behind a paywall, I’m not achieving those goals anymore.

Pfff… Which way to go? Wish I was as clever as Spencer Fry.

I’ve been enjoying my tumbling content on here ever since I switched to this design (which is built on a standalone install of WordPress) late last year. To be honest though, considering that I was situated alone on my own island, my tumblog content was never gonna have the same traction as it would have in a community like Tumblr.

So I’ve been considering switching this design over to Tumblr and then just keeping my longer written articles on here (eg. all of my Project 52 contributions) and in the past week I actually ported this design over to Tumblr (the design is too awesome to lose imo). But if you’re reading this, then you’re still reading it on WordPress and not Tumblr…

Before I get into the reasons for not switching to Tumblr, I’d just like to tell you why I was even considering switching:

• There’s a community on Tumblr, which makes the sharing & distribution of one’s content much, much easier. The re-blog functionality is especially awesome and it is also something that I can’t replicate on a standalone version of WordPress.
• Even though I’ve replicated most of Tumblr’s posting functionality in my WordPress environment (something that we’ll also be implementing at WooThemes soon), it is still not as easy and quick to update my tumblog as it would be on Tumblr.

So why didn’t I switch then? Basically I found that I was being limited in terms of porting this design over in its current state. Tumblr has some awesome template tags, but they’re not as flexible as WordPress is, which is a shame. For most people considering Tumblr though, this wouldn’t be an issue, because they could design around those apparent limitations. For me, it has meant that I will continue to tumble on my lonely island over here.