proud n00b

WDYT? New Coding Blog

In preparation for the interview yesterday, I met up with @Sasha who threw me a curve ball, “You should write for a tech magazine.” Come again!?

A few weeks ago, we had a conversation around this question  I posted on Hacker News -

“Ask HN: Is anyone else tired of reading the same articles?”

 My points are :

• I’m tired of reading vague news stories about Facebook/Twitter/Groupon etc.
• The same “hot” topics get regurgitated- ex. A/B testing, Design, “I failed,” etc.
• The same sources are considered Gospel - AVC, PG, Techcrunch, Scoble…

To say I’m frustrated with the online, coding discourse is an understatement. I think it could be so much more. Once a tech story/company has hit the mainstream press (Techcrunch included), the details get diluted so the majority of readers can understand it. Ex. Twitter goes down. Tumblr goes down.

Why did the site go down?

I’m relatively new to this whole coding thing, but I am still very curious as to what is going on behind the scenes. Who are the “bad-ass” programmers/engineers in the trenches? Corporate blog posts do not go into these details because of their audience - generic users.

Is anyone else interested in a blog that would interview the best coders out there?

I am thinking along the lines:

• Learn their tricks/hacks/lessons learned along the way
• In depth stories of how a site works & technologies used
• When something breaks, why did it break? Technically, what is going on?
• What made your site successful over a competitor? Why did you do it that way?

This would not be a startup, VC, design, or entrepreneur blog - but a serious look at the technologists behind the scenes. Maybe some companies wouldn’t want this information out there- but I think many would.

I know some killer engineers that have 0 online presence. They have experience/insights that would blow your mind. The thing is - the  best engineers do not care about HN karma, Twitter followers, or RSS subscribers.  If they are on these sites like HN or Reddit, they use them soley to broadcast their new projects. It is weird how we look at karma/followers as some type of sign of quality. In many cases, it is totally incorrect.

 To introduce a new voice in this discussion, I’m kicking around the idea of starting this blog. Is it needed? Would you read it?

What do you think?

Want to learn how to code?

Here is the single best piece of advice I can give you:

Start a blog, and write about your journey.

Get it on Hacker News, or some other news site, for a bit of traction, but start writing.

If you are lucky, your readers will help you when you are stuck, and that will make all the difference in the world.

A sincere thanks to the readers who have helped me.

Thank you

How to Blog - 10 Things You Must Know

Have you ever thought about starting a blog? Here the 10 things you’ll want to keep in mind as you get started.

1. A compelling backstory- what makes you interesting?

2. Write (almost) everyday - the more you write, the faster you will find your voice

3. No typos…well as few as possible… 

4. Write for a persona- who are your readers? 

5. More YOU than I

6. Save your ideas into a folder/file for future use

7. Traffic is like the rain- some days it pours, some days it sprinkles.

8. Learn from your readers- what posts did they enjoy?

9. Write interesting titles

10. How To’s & Lists do generate traffic

*Image from cambodia4kidsorg

13,000 readers later - Lessons from Blogging

It has been 1 week since I quit my job, and jumped 100% into learning how to program.

This morning I received an email from a reader asking:

Questions:

1. How many people came back organically?
2. Did “narrative” posts work better than “technical” posts?
3. Anything else I should know about how to leverage the experience?

Answers:

1. Total 13,000+ (Yeah, it has blown me away too!) 300 per day organically.
2. I am not sure. It seems people are interested in the blog for a few reasons. 

Quick survey - Why do you read this blog?

• Interested in my story
• You want to quit your job or change careers too
• Are a programmer looking to help
• Other?

Please leave the answer in the comments! Thanks!

And to the final question- there is a lot to ‘leveraging the experience!’ Here are the lessons I’ve learned:

1. Google analytics doesn’t automatically track outbound links, ex. to Twitter. Solution here
2. #3 on Front Page of HackerNews brings over 7,000 visitors. Anywhere on the front page brings about 1,000 visitors
3. Make a link to your Twitter account very prominent - http://twitter.com/emilepetrone
4. There is also a Twitter account for just blog posts, but I do not highlight that account on the blog - http://twitter.com/proudn00b
5. Track RSS feeds with Feedburner
6. Things will break, just roll with the punches
7. Taking a big leap, does bring big traffic. 
8. After a link on HackerNews gets a lot of traction, you will have a big drop in traffic. 90% do not return.
9. Track your analytics with Ego (iPhone App $1.99)
10. People need to understand your blog instantly. Have a short description in the header.
11. Get into a posting rhythm - same time of day, with a certain frequency.
12. People will contact you in every possible way (Twitter, Email, Facebook, Linkedin, Comments, etc). So have all of those accounts up to date!
13. As for learning how to code- you will have interruptions. Just roll with them and go with the flow. (Friday got totally wrecked after Borders made me go all the way to Palo Alto to just return a book bc I didn’t have the receipt. Goodbye day!)
14. Breaks are good for (required) reflection. Took this weekend off to decompress & analyze the traffic, feedback, and take stock of where everything is. Changes to the design are coming & bought the CSS Cookbook for just that. 
15. Get out of the house! Go to grab some lunch or meet up with friends after a long day. Not having to go to the office, is a good & bad thing. You miss the social interactions that comes with.
16. Selfcontrol is a required app. It will keep you focused.
17. Setup multiple inboxes in Gmail to filter out messages from Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. It will keep your inbox organized when a post suddenly takes off.
18. Tweetie is great for maintaining multiple Twitter accounts & the @ messages to them.
19. Random lesson, but I go to the grocery store much less frequently. I am out of food! 
20. If you can’t post from your laptop, make sure you can post via your phone. Only for emergencies..
21. You will get haters. Just brush em off, and ignore their comments.
22. I wish there was a way I could track my blog comments, HackerNews comments, @ replies all in the same place. Any recommendations?
23. On learning, start with what you know. Get very broad & slowly work your way down to a niche. It will give you a base of knowledge, and open you to new ideas you hadn’t explored (or even knew about!)
24. If you don’t know something, just ask! IRC #python & Twitter have been great for fast answers.
25. Stay organized! This is critical. Ex. I have a folder for links, throw everything in there & read them at the end of the day.
26. Disqus is pretty great for managing comments. 
27. Design is critical. Initially I heard a lot of noise on the font used & way I displayed links. I learned that lesson! More changes on the way…
28. Blog posts take about 3 hours to write, review, and rewrite.
29. 1% of your readers will follow you on Twitter. Out of 13,000 readers, I’ve seen a bump of about 130 followers.
30. Strangers are awesome - if they find you, they will help.
31. If you are wrong, readers will let you know! Just learn each time!
32. Figure out a structure for each post. I haven’t figured that out just yet, but that is the goal.

And on that- yesterday I posted I will not be posting daily. After all of the feedback, let me make a small correction to that policy. I will post small, technical updates daily & save longer posts for maybe once a  week. Smaller posts will hold my feet to the fire, and keep me focused. The longer posts just take too long to do on a daily basis.

So there you go- I think 32 lessons is a good place to stop. Thanks guys for an awesome Week 1! Here’s to you guys! Oh, and if you could also answer the survey question too, I’d appreciate it :)

Follow me on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/emilepetrone

Is RSS dead?

A question I posted to Quora here. I am looking at other blogs, and the only thing that is consistent is a link like, Follow me on Twitter here.

So does that mean RSS is dead?