WITH THE START OF Irish Blog Week, I want to thank the blogging tools carried in my pocket--my cameraphone, my digital still camera, my Moleskine journal and my digital dictaphone. I have used those tools to produce blog posts while out and about (see above from a shot in late 2003). Most of the content recorded on those pocket-handy items hits the internet through a mail-to-blog capability. Through the years, I've also used mobile internet pages to upload text, photos, video clips and audio content. My level of service with O2-Ireland has improved year-on-year. It's costing me more each week to feed my mobile data habit than I spend in my favourite Irish pubs every week. Over the years, I've learned that it is much less expensive to fire away an email to my blog, as opposed to opening a web browser and typing the post into a web form for upload. And it's dramatically less expensive (and much faster) to read blogs through an aggregator like FreeNews. The web form method is the only way I can control the level of spam that I accept on my blog and via my e-mail.
Four years ago, when I roamed and wrote every day on my smartphone, I would post as may as 14 items from my Nokia Communicator to Irish Typepad. That level of activity didn't result in anything special. I didn't achieve any special standing. In fact, years after I started blogging, I know I'm writing to a niche audience that moves along, year on year.
I used to spend a lot of time posting to my blog on Sundays. Today, I spend time putting video online on Sunday mornings because if I don't, the objections start streaming into my direct message flow.
Something I believed back in 2004 holds true today: "well-formed essays make more impact than snippets or rewarmed news clippings." And well-written blog content wins handily over short form tweets.
As Irish Blog Week starts, I wish I could say that I've annotated more free and open wifi so far in 2009 than I had noted in 2004 but that's not true. I wish the Irish government would endorse free and open wifi at centres of community activity as a minimum standard for engaging citizens. But as far as I can tell, I'm relatively alone in this wish.
Previously -- "Tips for Mail2Blog Users" on Irish Typepad, 15 February 2004.
Tip: Dialing *101# on O2 gives you your current charges.
Google finds fewer than 300 references to "Irish Blog Week".
