The Age Of Artists Sans Middlemen

The age of the privileged middlemen is over. All along the artist has been at the mercy of that privileged middleman to get their work to the audience. Be it be a publisher, an art gallery or a music records company – for years they have controlled who and what reaches the market. But the times have changed and so has the role of the middleman – from the controller to the facilitator.

The artist is the privileged one now – they can opt for a facilitator but it’s not mandatory. They just need their art to be good enough to reach the market. They can paint, create music or have their own comic strip – and even if they choose to go with the middlemen they can do it at their own terms.

Why I stuck to Blogger despite being lured to Wordpress??

"Between stimulus and response is our greatest power -- the freedom to choose.”

One of my dear friend, philosopher and guide, whose opinion I value, recently suggested that I should move from Blogger to Wordpress(WP) for a better blogging experience. I had almost made up my mind to do so over the last weekend but then I read the above said quote somewhere, so decided to do the obvious, to compare the two options and then make a decision. The easiest way, as usual, Google :)
I found this very useful post which does a step by step comparison between WP and the Blogger: http://bit.ly/bnsYsG. But the good thing is the post is not judgmental. It lists the comparative features of both, tabular format, side by side, lists all the available widgets and in some cases the alternatives too but does not explicitly tell you which one is better but leaves the choice upto the reader.
Now there is no point in my repeating the whole process. However, just to let you know, I have decided to stick with Blogger for now. But for benefit of everybody I will list the so called drawbacks of using Blogger and the work-around that I am or will be using to deal with each of them:

Limited Templates

Around last month, Blogger launched "Template Designer" which should answer most of the concerns around limited templates and the lack of customization options. The "Template Designer" allows for a fair bit of tweaking to the templates….and they still adding features to it. So I believe in the days to come there would be a lot more customizations available. Checkout: http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com/ for more details on this.

Embedded Comment Form

Blogger now provides one but it’s still very rudimentary with no comment threading options for follow-ups available yet. I haven't been able to get a workaround this. For now I am content with personally acknowledging the comments I get through email or other mediums.

Tracking and Stats
This is touted as a big attraction for WP users but as far as I understand users have only limited access to the stats and data unless they opt for a paid upgrade. If you are interested in stats and about how you good your blog is doing, I would suggest using Google Analytics tracking. It's free and the tracking can be easily installed using the 'HTML/JavaScript' widget available in Blogger. Once you register for a free GA account; just generate the tracking code, copy and paste in the 'HTML/JavaScript' widget and you are good to go. You will have access to user tacking and stats information as good as it can get for any website.


Widgets/Links to Social Widgets

Agreed that WP presents much better widgets than Blogger but most of them are available in Blogger. And again most websites would provide their own widgets code which you can copy and paste in the 'HTML/JavaScript' widget.













Image storage
I know this is a bit of concern as WP offers 3 GB of space for image storage vs. 1 GB of Blogger. But the good news is that Blogger uses Picasa web albums of the associated Google account to store the images. Even in case you opt for an upgrade in Picasa you can use the storage for personal photos also and not just the ones related to the blog.


Final Verdict: I am not ruling out WP as a possibility in the future, but for now will stick to blogger :)

Have you foursquare'd yet?

Please note this post is already available at my other blog @ http://sankhyatantra.blogspot.com . But since I started this blog to specifically write on similar topics, I am reposting it here.
Ah.. found something exciting once again on the web: Foursquare (foursquare.com)
The Foursquare website describes itself as a means ".. to meet up with friends and discover new places!.."
The app mainly aims at letting your friends know what all places you visit and help you share your experiences with them. Say you visit a restaurant...all your friends would instantly know that you are there, if anybody is around they can visit you. Not only that there are host of other features that make it exciting
...so much so that people have started touting it as the next twitter :)

Got to know about Foursquare from the following: http://bit.ly/bZ1Esb . So decided to check it out and was not disappointed at all. In one of my earlier posts ( http://bit.ly/9ZeWno ) I mentioned how a new innovation quickly leads to the other. foursquare is a classic example of that. It derives its roots from twitter. In-fact, IMHO, it's a sweet combination of twitter and "word of mouth" publicity.


How does it work?
First of all you need to download the app on your phone. The website offers customized apps for iphone, android, blackberry and palm. Other mobile users with browsers can visit the mobile website. For people with non browser phones, they have an sms number where you can send your current location (the service is currently available only for US users though).


Visit Places or Check-in
Whenever you visit a place a check-in happens. Each visit is a check-in and there are points associated with it. There are points for late nights, visiting new places, taking friends etc

Earn Points and become the Mayor
As you keep visiting or checking in at various places, you keep earning points and unlocking badges. And if you become a person who has visited a place more than anyone else, you become the "Mayor" of that place ( there are benefits of being a Mayor)


Share your experience with your friends
You can also offer tips to your friends..visited a restaurant and if there is a dish on the Menu that you absolutely love!!..just let your friends know and recommend it. That ways you not only recommend a restaurant but what would be the best possible thing to order there..


Why businesses love it :)
For businesses it's an excellent and fun way of promoting loyalty. The "Mayors" are offered freebies and other benefits which encourages them to visit the place time and again.And remember a Mayor can dislodged from his position by others by earning more points..so more competition..more customers vying for the "Mayor"ship..better for your business :)


See Reports
The best thing is probably this one which was sadly missing in Twitter. An individual can see what all places he has visited, how many times, points earned etc. Similarly businesses can see the number of check-ins both new and repeat and keep a tab on the new clientele they are attracting as well as customer loyalty and retention.