Coding In The Darkness

… I’d be happy with a hundred!

I have been keeping a watch on this for the past 2 or 3 days now and i just find the whole concept very funny. (Link to story here)
The fact that a) CNN @cnnbrk has only just got ownership of the account, so technically they have only really earned the last 80,000 or so followers, b) That of all of the twitter accounts out there it has fallen upon Ashton Kutcher @aplusk to try and steal this race.
I have nothing against Ashton, i like him actually and i have chosen to follow him because his posts seem interesting enough, i just was surprised that there is only one news feed against two celebs for the first mill (Including Britney Spears @britneyspears who is third).

I suppose it confirms the fact that we are more interested in celebrity culture than news, well celeb news is news but you know what i mean.

I like the whole story as its just a nice fun story in the news for a change and whoever wins the Malaria charity’s and suffers will benefit which is great. Also the special number followers who will get games by EA is cool and should help up the numbers!

Also found this of Ashton on YouTube helping to fight the cause, all i can say is one man, nearly a million followers, what would happen if this guy ran for president, or worse if Britney Spears did!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma8AcfKGaEI]

Anyway if you want to follow me and help me get to 100 followers i can be found here @BenScowen, maybe I’ll do something for charity too, but you will get no games!

TTYL

When it comes to writing a good blog, content is king, in-fact when it comes to writing web content or even updating facebook and twitter if your content is boring then it wont get clicked. But where do you or i fit into all of this?

I’ve been reading  alot lately about what makes a good blogger and web writer i guess unsurprisingly it’s similar to writing a good book, you have to know your audience and present your content in an interesting way. But how exactly do you do that when there are no doubt thousands of blogs already which know your audience and know how to grab them in?

So I’ve been thinking what do i need to do to find my voice, grab my audience and most important find what to write about.

I reckon it will take me a while to figure all of that out nut for now a little link dump is in order:

http://www.socmedia101.com/ – Very cool site i found a few hours ago, i will be checking often
http://www.viralvideochart.com/ – Try not to get addicted, good tool for learning if your interested or a great way to waste 30 minutes!
http://www.gosquared.com/liquidicity/archives/category/helpsheets – Great for Web Designers – Simpellz!

Hope that craves your thirst of Ben for the day…

I suppose the title sums up this post, i talk to lots of people about Social Media, Networks on the web, and Google and SEO rankings etc, but am i right?

Basically as it stands i have:

• 175 Friends on Facebook
• 26 Followers on Twitter
• A very Old MySpace and Bebo page
• A nearly finished Web Site
• YouTube & Flickr accounts
• And this blog which needs a good shot in the arm

I admit i am selective and don’t add just anyone, i know >90% of my FB friends for instance.

So the EXPERIMENT!
How famous can i get by the end of the year?
Basically i have no idea how i am going to measure it but i want see how many “friends”, “followers”, “subscribers”, how high up the google rankings i get when i search for “Ben Scowen” (and how many are actually me).
I have to learn a lot more about good blogging, SEO, Social Media but there is no better test subject than myself.

So i will set some rules to make the test fair throughout and not cheat.

1. I will not request people to be my friend, follow etc, they must want to join me on there own accord
2. I will blog, tweet, video blog etc as often as possible but at least once a week
3. On certain sites i will become or follow someone but not ask them for a return, i want to make myself visible without forcing myself upon people.

That’s it for rules unless i get some good suggestions, i will post weekly or monthly updates on my progress with graphs etc for all you stat geeks out there.

That’s it, if you have any advice, or can find anyone else who has done similar so i can compare please let me know, but for now,

Stay Classy (Maybe i need a new non Ron-Burgundy sign off?)