This is not sad insomuch as it is simply revealing – like so much in history, once we see it in retrospect. The cellular phone was supposed to connect us more readily to friends, but it distanced us to those directly in front of ourselves. The internet makes possible worldwide interactions on a scale and in a way heretofore unfathomable, yet distances us from daily life.

Ah, but this reads too much like a tragedy already. As with any coin, there are two sides to this of course.  Still, there is a meditative beauty that I think is sometimes lost in the digital age of high-speed communications … some still capture it, while others let it pass by. Time to disconnect, as a friend recently insisted upon, is indeed crucial. And the blogged musings of a would-be mogul … perhaps less so.

Still, this was a business trip, so first things first: Michigan – many thanks to an amazing group of graduate students at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for their critical feedback on WebUrbanist.com. Samantha Ashby, Gin Chieng, Melissa Cox, and Suyog Deshpande spent their last term (for Evaluation of Systems and Services in the School of Information) looking into usability on the site. From a combination of interviews, research and technical analysis to both critique and suggest changes in layout and navigation. It was a true pleasure to attend their final presentation and meet with them afterward for further direct discussion.

And second things second: Colorado – thanks again to Lijit and The Foundry Group for inviting my participation on the publisher panel at B Media in Boulder. Grace, Perry, Todd and others gave me a great warm welcome – the conference itself was an impressive success, bringing a slew of successful and talented publishing and advertising professionals together under one roof. From the morning office tour, through the afternoon session and into the (delicious) dinner at The Kitchen, it was an excellent experience. Wonderful to talk to folks including (but not limited to) Jay of AngryBovine and Todd of CheezBurger.

Now back to the urban(e) – pulling into a spot across the street from the hotel, two of The Clubs (steering-wheel locks) were visible in the cars both in front and behind our rental. Perhaps not the best of signs. An hour after checking in, we were prevented from leaving or even lingering in the lobby – no explanation, but police band radio revealed (well before it broke on Twitter) that there was a bomb scare in Channel 4 across the street. Someone had left a suitcase in the lobby unattended. Overreaction? Not considering an actual bomb was accidentally brought into the federal building but a few weeks before (thankfully it never detonated). The bomb squad arrived and detonated the suitcase, just in case, but it appears to have been a false alarm. Still, welcome to Detroit.

But splashy sagas aside, it is an incredible city – vibrant farmers market, concentrated notes of dense activity, gorgeous old buildings ranging from stately mansions to stone civil war veteran affairs buildings. Much was for sale, including block-sized churches and whole police stations. Cass Technical High School sits beside itself – a new city block taken over with a same-sized building as its predecessor, built new because it was cheaper and easier than renovating the old. Vintage jazz clubs turned into cozy diners and super-sized homes converted to restaurants show the potential of new growth, as did the opening of Detroit’s only hostel (which we attended while there). Much material in this city – WebUrbanist could cover the abandonments, art, design and more, year round, and never run out of new material.

Then came Denver – a shorter stop along the way to Boulder, but a fascinating mini-trip nonetheless. I was beginning to worry on the drive in that there was no there there – a series of all-at-once suburban constructions circling nothing, like resort towns without the resort. The downtown had LoDo, a lovely (if slightly trendy) little area of old architecture, as well as a new postmodernist museum (though every city seems to have one these days). Not bad, but certainly without the small-town charm of lovely little Boulder, pressed up against the base of a dizzying mountain range extending as far as the eye can see on either side.

It is too easy, in a way, to pit Detroit against Denver as polar opposites – old manufacturing versus new technology, run-down versus still-expanding, etc… Reality is always more nuanced. I read recently that Detroit was the only major city in the last few months to not experience a decline in housing prices. I hope not to jinx it by suggesting it has far more upside potential now than downside – the slate is cleared and there is room for growth. Will it come via farms or other forms of redensification? Hard to say, but the city is ready to try anything new, and has begun to do so. Denver is all about new, but one has to wonder whether it can weather upheavals like Detroit has down the line – it just does not feel ‘built to last’ in quite the same way. Then again, many of Detroit’s most solid and sturdy buildings have been abandoned, so perhaps nothing really does.

The term ‘marketer’ leaves a bad taste in most of our mouths, but self-promotion is part and parcel of building a readership base, like it or not. The best way, in my opinion, to visualize this problem (and start to find solutions) is to use yourself as the example – and analyze the ways in which you (as well as your friends, family, coworkers and so forth) actually come across content online.

To be sure, content is king, but like the chess piece it is also slow-moving – the queen in this case would be the work you put into gaining exposure, a fast-moving piece that crosses a board many times during the game. Lose the king and you lose the game, but lose the queen and your mobility is crippled and winning becomes much more difficult. Now, not everyone writes to ‘win’ a ‘game’ per se, but for those who seek exposure (be it for fame, fortune or simply entertainment) you have to ask yourself: what road will someone take to locate your online opus, and how can you blaze more trails to it for them to follow?

Like a bond fund, your job pays you regular dividends – these are what account for the growth, which works out well for keeping the fridge filled and lights on in the short term. It also has some core value that builds up over time, but mainly it is a relatively safe and stable way to pay the bills from day to day. This is a safe place to sit, comfortable but perhaps a bit boring knowing where the predictable path leads.

Like a stock fund, your venture is not necessarily a sure thing, either in the short or the long terms. However, history shows that stocks do perform better over the long haul on the whole than bonds. The problem is, from one month to the next they are not a reliable source of steady cash flow. Moreover, there is still the off chance your stock will never recover from a given crash. This is a scary place to dwell, with big rewards but even bigger potential losses.

But here is where it gets interesting: history shows that a regularly rebalanced stock-and-bond mix (tempered with an intelligent and age-suited asset allocation) actually performs better than either extreme. When bonds go up and stocks go down, you can use some of your bond yield to buy up stocks for the future (when presumably they will rise again). Likewise when bonds are flat but stocks are soaring, you can move some funds back to the bond side before the next bubble bursts.

To be fair, this is somewhat oversimplified … but its relevance cannot be ignored: by having a combination of more typical employment and more variable side ventures you can balance your strategies and get a bit of the best from both worlds. However the specifics work, the key is to diversify – work at different levels to keep life interesting but also spread your bets around (and try to stay balanced along the way).

The former is a powerful service that helps provide micro-loans (via numerous small individual lenders) to people in search of anything from a bit more money to pay for a wedding to help consolidating their massive debt. I have invested a small amount in part simply to support other entrepreneurs and folks just generally having a hard time getting a normal loan, but have also enjoyed a return that significantly out-paces the currently crazy stock markets (as well as steady-state bond markets) – truly a win-win situation, which exposes me to the exciting as well as heartbreaking stories of loan seekers. LendingClub is not the only one of its kind out there, but personally I think the interface, vetting process and so forth are much better structured than some of its competitors.

The latter is purely non-profit, but is also very different from your typical send-and-forget charity donations. Instead, when you put money in Kiva not only can you select from a series of well-defined projects from around the developing world, but you can also choose the amount to give and, when it is paid back, you can invest it in someone or something else (or withdraw your funds). Again, the variety of uses is part of the fascination – it can be anything from a group of basket weavers in rural Africa starting an export business for their custom goods, to someone in Brazil simply seeking to pay rent on a street-vendor slot so they can showcase and sell their wares.

So if you, like me, have lost a little heart as the once-independent, fast-growing properties of the Long Tail Revolution have grown somewhat stagnant, I would encourage you to check out some other projects like these that are not just innovative but also can make a difference (and perhaps earn you monetary rewards as well).

I am not suggesting that books are on their way out, or that linear narratives are exclusively the province of the past, but that such static traditional volumes can no longer capture the ways in which language and the very nature of written and verbal communication have changed in recent decades. Sure, none of this is truly new – micro-messaging predates emails, cellular phones and text messages, dating back to the telegraphs and beyond, but never has it been so ubiquitously employed. Any substantial written body of work seeking to reflect the spirit of our times has to take into account these very fundamental ways in which we related to one another as human beings.

Of course, one could easily imagine a series of gimmicky attempts at too-literally writing for and with the times – such as the already-extant books filled with Twitter ‘Tweets’ already lining the shelves of stores. I make no claim to see specifically what will arise to challenge the status quo and forever change the meaning of ‘Great American Novel’ in the minds of successful and aspiring writers, but I sense strongly that there is something on the horizon yet to be discovered that will shake our understanding of Great, American and Novel to the core.

Phase two has been something of a disappointment. I had forgotten what comes with a land line – no nifty number to give an indicator of who might be calling as well as a slew of solicitors and wrong numbers from the previous user of my particular sequence of digits (who in this case appears not to have been a native English speaker, leading to some fun attempts at understanding an unknown foreign language). In short: the land line is still, sadly, more annoying than the cell phone.

So why this elaborate attempt to unwind my attachment to my cell phone? It is not a self-regulating urge to detach myself from an essential device; quite the contrary, I simply do not like being as accessible as this gadget makes me. I also look around and see people relying too much on their portable devices – planning poorly and using them as a crutch for last-minute corrections. However, the main reason relates to saturation: I am on the grid and fully connected so much of the time that when I step away from the computer that is it – I want to be free of artificial indirect communication.

Part three, for those still curious, will likely involve a hybrid solution – perhaps I will jettison the failed land line after all and switch back to the cell, but not without a fight (or at least some modifications). One of the biggest expressions of disbelief I get regularly involves emergencies …. What if something happens to me? Or I am needed right away? Well, the first answer is easy: alright, alright, I will not actually trash my cell. The second part can be answered with a question: seriously, how many times has someone used a cellular phone to contact you (rather than, say, the police) in a real emergency?

I am with the others. I went to all of the top sites you listed that make a ton of money and with the exception of perezhilton I really don’t understand them. I really don’t think they are appealing to mainstream bloggers who blog about their lives, their jobs, their hobbies, their kids, etc… I just don’t understand the photos of cats. It seems silly and it’s not really a blog. Nothing is being learned there so I don’t get it. I am trying to develop my own niche blog but I was thinking more along the lines of the lighter side of life..maybe incorporating humor into my every day experiences that I believe most Americans experience…either that or a review of McDonald’s restaurants all over the country. Even that is more appealing to me than a blog with crazy cat pictures.

• Audience: The sites mentioned may not appeal to “mainstream bloggers” – but even if that turned out to be correct it would only illustrate a critical point of confusion: blog writers are not necessarily blog readers, and audiences vary. Personally, I do not check ICanHasCheezburger for the latest captioned cat imagery nor do I find the celebrity gossip and poorly-edited images of PerezHilton personally entertaining, but I have looked them over with a critical eye – as should anyone who wants to understand online publishing – and at least comprehend the source and nature of their success.
• Authorship: As to writing about personal life stories … sorry, but most of us find that mind-numbingly boring. We already communicate with friends, family and others about daily life – we read web content to either entertain and/or inform us. There are exceptions. Facebook, Twitter and other social sites exist for sharing this kind of day-to-day content. They are also easier to use and communicate through – likely better options for someone looking for this sort of more personalized and direct interaction.
• Alternative: Perhaps the most fascinating part of the above-excerpted comment, however, is the final note about reviewing fast food joints around the country. Now, if you asked a fan of ICanHasCheezburger they might turn the tables and say: but cats with captions are at least more interesting than reviews of mass-produced restaurant chains. It is entirely subjective. The point is: there probably would indeed be a market for such a review site – either for the practical information it would impart or simply for the entertainment value.

The lesson to be learned here: define your own terms for success and then understand the sites that are already successful on those terms. If your goal is to simply express yourself, great: start your personal weblog or social media profile and have at it. If, however, you seek fame, fortune or at least a significant following, then read, re-read and read again each of those sites that are successes on those terms. It might be a tad hyperbolic, but I believe that no one has a serious shot at success unless they understand the work of their peers and colleagues in the same or similar fields. If you do not “like” or “get” them then you are going to have to go back and try again.

Second, a blogger is necessarily going to be reading and researching the field (if there is such a thing) of blogging to develop themselves professionally, so it seem like a natural step to start writing down thoughts on the matter. This, however, leads to a slew of novices attempting to represent themselves as successful professionals when, in reality, they often know very little about the subject matter as they are just learning it themselves. Do you really want to read a college level (let alone high school) paper on a subject or something from an experienced veteran? There is nothing wrong with writing down your thoughts. In fact, being prolific can be good practice. However, if there is money involved the temptation is strong for people to begin pretending they know more than they do about what they are doing.

Third, but wrapping back to the very first sentence of this article: this subject matter is supersaturated, making for a large and easy-to-spot territory for flustered new entre-pioneers with freshly-staked domain claims. I am personally a firm believer that anyone can make any kind of publication work if they have the right mixture of experience, knowledge and dedication … but going into the most populated of all possible topic areas seems all but suicidal for someone serious about making a living – particularly if they are starting largely from scratch. Moreover, it pits these newcomers against some of the most savvy, sneaky and slick online media makers since the ‘making money’ and ‘blogging’ niches naturally have their fair share of competitors. This very packed pool is filled with both sharks to genuine successes – and each of these extremes represent equally daunting challenges for a player just being introduced to the game.

Look around for a moment. Notice the nature of this site? It is not commercial, no advertisements, nothing. I am, in short, not trying to turn this into some kind of money-maker. I have pride (or lack modesty) enough to state that I consider myself a relative success in the realm of online publishing, yet even now I have little interest in competing to become an authority figure – let alone try to make my living as one.

The sad fact is that the culture of blogging-about-blogging is self-perpetuating – people get sucked into the micro-blogosphere composed of other aspiring bloggers like themselves, see their colleagues rabidly reading the blogs of certain ‘blogstars’ and simply fall into the pattern. The trick is not to avoid the meta-bloggers entirely – they are essential resources for someone entirely new to online publishing – but instead to find a few select sources of inspiration and information and shut out the rest. Besides, at the end of the day, do you want to be writing content for novice content-producers or for your colleagues, peers and future friends? Finally, it might sound trite but cliches are often true: you will only be successful if you have passion for what you do – and your newfound potential passion for blogging is unlikely to last as long as the core passions that got you interested in writing and/or publishing and/or online media in the first place.

Moreover, many of the functions that we once relied on search engines for are now being serviced by alternative sources. KGB and ChaCha – both staffed with real-life, question-answering people – are but one example but not the most powerful and quickly-growing one. Wolfram Alpha has some parallels as well, but not enough to warrant more than a mention at this point. From the title, you know where this is going even if you do not quite believe it yet: social media sites (from the classics like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon to the currently-trendy Facebook and Twitter) are increasingly becoming vital places we look for assistance in finding information, recommendations, reviews and more. But why? Crowdsourcing.

By asking the ‘crowd’ for information, we add a new, more intelligent and more targeted layer to our search parameters. If KGB and ChaCha level things up by adding a human being into the mix, then posting a request for information to our Twitter followers or Facebook friends is an exponential step up from that – these are people we have hand-selected, who have similar interests or tastes in some cases but, more than anything, there are so damned many of them that someone is bound to have the necessary knowledge base.

Of course, for some things you are still best off searching via a conventional engine, perhaps surfing Wikipedia or even (please, don’t) checking Yahoo! Answers for a simple solution. However, in two cases recently I found myself relying heavily on friends and social contacts for advice and feedback on things. In the first, I was looking for a particular artist who I was unable to track down via Google. I did not know her name and none of the keywords I cold think of regarding her work were working. Posting my query on Twitter brought back multiple right answers with additional links and information in a matter of minutes, saving me both time and trouble. In the second instance, I was trying to decide (and still am, for that matter) on what to purchase in terms of an MP3 and/or video player with or without internet browsing capabilities or additional applications. Sure, I could check Google or even look at product review sites, but at the end of the day I simply trust my friends on Facebook more to relate their personal experiences with products than I do some source written by a stranger for a target audience of which I may not be a part.

So wait, then, is this really ‘replacing’ search engines or simply offering another means of searching for information that works better in some cases than others? I would suggest that the story is incomplete at this point – and that what we are seeing is a transitional phase between conventional forms of search and network-augmented variants yet to come. Already, Google is experimenting with people ‘voting’ on search results (sound like any social media sites you know? Cough, Digg, cough). How long before they factor in votes of friends with a multiplier of, say, X … and friends-of-friends with a multiplier of Y% of X, and so on and so forth. There is no way to know for sure, but if you follow the current trends to their logical conclusion this result is the obvious end product: a hybrid of social media sites and search engine tools that weighs the opinions of our friends, colleagues, coworkers and allies alongside the (supposedly) objective metrics currently used to generate relevant search results.

Perhaps the strongest argument for this endgame is an intuitive one. Consider the scenario: you perform a search on some website for a product. You get a set of results, but these results are tagged with the names of friends and their (individual or averaged) rankings – or you do not even see such tags but know that the answers put in front of you are informed, in part, by stored feedback from your network. You will trust these results more. You will not, as you do now on a typical search site, question the motives of the websites listed – or at least not as much.