Garaphernalia 7.5

A while ago I launched an online forum on my site. The spam problem eventually became so great that I closed off adding any new members and just let the site sit.

The spam was really ridiculous. I tried using captchas and other things, but the bots are just too smart. Nothing worked.

Last week, on a whim I revisited the forum and decided to upgrade the vBulletin software that was running on it.

I screwed up and accidentally deleted everyone’s account and all the old posts. I was pretty frustrated at what I had done, so I just left the forums alone because I was heading off to the Galapagos Island for several days.

Someone later posted a hint for checking to see if your site was hacked. I did a Google search for “Site:everything-everywhere.com viagra” and sure enough something came up….and it was a forum post. I thought I had killed all the posts.

It turns out in those few days when I was in the Galapagos, over 15,000 spam comments were posted to the forum. FIFTEEN THOUSAND!!! Porn, gambling, viagra, you name it, it was on the forum.

Needless to say, the bots were hitting my forum hard even though it had been offline for months.

I went in, deleted all the users and all the posts. I then tried to set up some of the built-in anti-spam protection, which didn’t do so well last time.

I noticed that the new version of the software had a new option. Instead of using captchs, you could ask a simple question. This time, I stayed away from the captchas and asked users: Which is bigger, 7 or 77?

The spam completely stopped. 100%. If I go to the forum now, I can see many bots still hitting the server, but they can’t register anymore.

I was amazed at how effective asking a simple question could be against bots. Moreover, if bots should ever figure it out, I just have to change the question to something simple and it will probably work again.

Over the next month I’ll be attending my final 2 conference of the year: Blog World Expo and World Travel Mart. They are totally different audiences and I’m going to them for totally different reasons.

I’ve attended a lot more conferences than normal this year. This was on purpose. I come to the travel industry as an outsider. Not just an outsider, but an outsider who hasn’t gone through any of the traditional gatekeepers which let people in or out.

One of the things I’ve learned this year is what conferences to attend and what I shouldn’t attend. I attended the New York Times and LA Times Travel Expos this year, but I probably wont be going back in 2012. I got a lot of value from the Canadian Media Marketplace and my assistant Amy will be attending VMEX this year for me. Events which are targeted directly towards journalists are FAR more productive than the consumer oriented ones like the NYT Travel Show.

I have the following conferences at least tentatively listed for 2012:

• TBEX
• International Pow Wow
• Canadian Media Market
• VEMX
• PRSA Travel
• Blog World
• SATW
• World Travel Market
• Adventure Travel Summit

I’m almost certainly not going to attend all of these. I’d be amazed if I attend even half of them. Having an assistant you can trust to represent you makes a huge difference. I’ll give priority to conferences where I’ll be speaking.

I will probably not be attending SXSW again. I was there this year and I really didn’t see the point in it. I didn’t accomplish anything in terms of business. I suppose if you want to ass kiss social media gurus or technology bloggers it can be fun, but other than that I don’t see what I’d do again. I’d need some specific reason to go this year. If you actually register for the actual conference (which I didn’t do) it is incredibly expensive.

One thing I’ve never understood is people who go to conference and then bitch about not learning anything. I don’t go to conference to learn. Anything you need to learn you are going to learn online before you ever go to a conference. You go to conferences to meet people.

In getting ready for both Blog World and WTM I’m spending some time looking at the list of speakers and exhibitors. Before the conference, I’m going to have a plan for who I want to meet and what I want to achieve. If you don’t do that, I really think you are just wasting time and money in attending a conference.

I’ve often said that for blogs like mine, audience is more important than traffic. I define audience as the people who will hear what you have to say next, not just what you had to say in the past. If you are getting good SEO traffic on an article you wrote years ago, that isn’t your audience. It could be, but it isn’t until you convert them.

I’m really all about conversion. Getting people to make a 1-click commitment to hear more from you in the future. They might want to hear more from you via RSS, email, Twitter or Facebook. It really doesn’t matter so long as they like you enough to want to hear more.

The best method is almost certainly email and that is one area where I have been lax in last few months. I’m going to be coming out with a host of products over the next few months, so getting my email list in order is now a top priority for me.

The first thing I did is set out to find an intern to help me compile the newsletter every 2 weeks. It actually isn’t that big of a job, but with all the other stuff I’m doing I’ve let it slip through the cracks one too many times. It is primarily compiling a list of what has been on the site the last 2 weeks.

The second thing is increasing the raw number of subscribers. I have a bunch of plans for this including putting a signup form in my new iPhone app, coming out with another free ebook, and some other things I’m not going to divulge at this time.

I’m also going to be upping the content in the newsletter. I’m going to be coming out with a multipart series which will be be releases every few days after someone signs up for the newsletter.

Basically, I need to make the newsletter on a par with the blog in terms of the attention I give it.

I think there is enormous potential in boosting my subscriber base if I can give this the attention it deserves.

Last week I spoke at the North American Travel Journalist Association conference in Anaheim. It was the first real travel writer conference I had ever attended and I got to meet many veteran travel writers who have been plying their craft for decades.

Being there and talking to travel journalists got me thinking of how what I do is different from what they have been doing for years. Perhaps the biggest difference is interaction with your readers. As a blogger, my readers can comment on anything I write knowing that I will read it. I get emails all the time from readers asking questions and I will often meet with readers in cities I visit for drinks or a meal.

You never see this sort of behavior with people who work on print or TV. If you sent a message to someone who worked for a newspaper to meet up and have drinks, they would probably think you are crazy. I haven’t meet a single writer who has ever met up with one of their readers or even has had an invitation from one. There is a very large chasm between writers and their readers. There is almost nothing in the way of feedback, comments and god forbid, actually meeting your readers.

Being an individual rather than someone who is works behind a larger brand name makes us very approachable, and that is our greatest strength. The fact that people think they can email us directly to ask a question or they can meet us in person is by far the most powerful thing about blogging. That personal connection makes us more trusted and listened to.

What audience we have, we had to earn. It wasn’t given to us by a gatekeeper at a publication and it wont disappear the moment they decide to downsize.

I’ve hammered this point home dozens of times in discussions with travel industry people. They assume that because something is glossy and has a big budget that people have a stronger relationship with it. It is higher “quality”. The problem is, the exact opposite is true. If it was true, magazines and newspapers wouldn’t be in the trouble they are in. You can’t interact with print. You can’t click with print. Pound for pound, a blogger will have a much more loyal audience than a print publication. Companies will toss 5 or even 6 figure ad buys at magazines which have an audience smaller than some blogs. They would never consider an equivalent ad buy with blogger of equal size.

This assumption that print is more powerful is absolutely wrong. The power of personality is the reason why people know the names of the bloggers they follow. It is why they follow them. The power of personality is what makes bloggers influential.

This familiarity, however, blows up in our face when we deal with the business world. Even if you have an audience larger than a print magazine, you wont be given the same amount of respect. Even though many bloggers are running small businesses, it is assumed that the influence and power of a business is reflected in its size. If you are just one person, you can’t be that big of a deal.

I’ve seen this first hand. When I started working with my assistant Amy, just having another person talk on your behalf changes the perception of the company you are working with. Suddenly, you aren’t just a person anymore, you have “people” (even if those people are just helping you on a part time basis or are on commission).

The informality which works so well with readers often leads to business behaving in ways in which they never would with a publication. Companies have no shame in asking for free consulting, free product mentions, or just ignoring bloggers altogether. I don’t think anyone would dare send an email to the New York Times asking them for free ad space.

I don’t think there is an easy solution to this. I believe that in the long run, things work themselves out. Part of the onus is on bloggers to change how they work with the industry, and part will be on the industry to see the real power and VALUE of working with independent online publishers.

Tonight I got into a discussion argument with a guy on Twitter which ended up with him basically taking the position that she should get send on press trips because he is an “influential” WordPress developer and a consumer and therefore people would listen to him.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

What I found surprising is how “influential” this guy thought he was. I looked at his blog and by any public measurement you can think of (RSS, Alexa, Twitter, Facebook, etc) this guy wasn’t that big of a deal. Really.

It ended up in him getting in to a “who’s dick is bigger” contest, which I knew I’d win because I looked his and he didn’t look at mine.

I’ve heard stories from PR people about bloggers who think they are prima donnas and act like total dicks on press trips.

I bring this up because I do my monthly Q&A post I often get questions pertaining to my “success”. The thing is, I really don’t consider myself any sort of blogging “success”.

Yes, compared to other bloggers I may have had more “success” (in some numerical sense), but in the big scheme of things I am nothing.

All I have to do is think of my friend Scott who has a popular webcomic. His audience DWARFS mine. It isn’t even funny. He shares office space with some guys who have another webcomic who have an audience that is way bigger than his. I am an accounting error compared to these guys.

There is always someone out there that makes you look insignificant.

When I think of how big the travel and tourism industry is, I know what I’m doing it just a drop in the bucket. Maybe not even a drop. The potential audience for travel is so big, and the bar is set so high, that the difference between me and a new blogger is nothing compared to where I am and the top possible rung. In that comparison, no blogger should get depressed about their size, nor should they get cocky.

I will often compare what I am doing with large magazines like Conde Nast Traveler or National Geographic. That is a pretty bold comparison, especially considering that they have hundreds of staff, giant offices and 8 figure budgets, and I’m just one guy. That, however, is the ultimate measuring stick and in that comparison we (bloggers) all come up massively short.

I truly am nothing…..and so are you.

I’ve been accused of being arrogant and at times there is probably some truth in that. But believe me when I say in my own mind I am constantly thinking about how to be better and how I could lose everything overnight.

You have to work your ass off and never rest on your laurels.