Connecting With Other Bloggers
What’s one of the best ways to get more traffic to your blog and get better at blogging faster? Being friends with other bloggers. Blogger friends you know in real life can be a great resource. But let’s say you don’t know any bloggers or, more...Marketing Monday: Foodista
Every Monday, the Breaking Even blog looks at a individual, business, or website promoting itself in interesting ways online. Have an idea? Do tell!
When I first began my blog in 2007, it was a hard choice between whether I would be talking about money or food. I decided that talking about money would force me to learn more about it but I still love food, follow several food blogs, and overall am interested in food-related issues.
My friend Sarah tipped my off to Foodista, a website startup from a few former Amazon.com employees. It was seeking to be an open source food encyclopedia, not just of ingredients but of recipes. Being the good friend that I am, I followed Foodista’s progress throughout Sarah’s internship there but continue to keep in touch now. (Sarah had to return eastward to finish her MBA.)
Foodista has done a few things well that I’ve noticed:
Foodista has a specific enough focus that it isn’t doing too much but a broad enough concept for it to grow.
As a website, you don’t want to pigeonhole yourself but you do want to give potential visitors an idea what they’ll find in relation to content on your site. Foodista tackles the expected ingredients and recipes but also discusses techniques of food preparation and cooking tools, which is less commonly found information. Having the focus of food (and food in the title of their domain name), however, gives potential web visitors an idea of what this site will be about. (If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, click here for an example of a much less clear website.)
Foodista allows users to submit content… without logging in.
As a web person constantly exploring new things, having to register for every website is a pain. Sure, it gives the website publisher/owner my contact information but for many people, having to register to do something simple like look around or even comment can be a deterent.
Foodista allowed me to upload my two fiddlehead pictures last spring with absolutely no issue. It also effortlessly connects to accounts you may have on other sites, like Flickr or Facebook. If I use the site a lot, I will no doubt create an account but for now, I feel the pride of being slightly famous in my own head, in relation to cookable ferns anyway.
What I Thought About Julie and Julia
Breaking Even blog is mostly business and money related but Fridays, I’m going to write about whatever I darn well feel like. Because aren’t Fridays supposed to be fun?
And when I think of fun lately, I keep thinking about the part of last weekend where I parked my butt on a couch. Instead of watching the Superbowl last Sunday, ie the most watched television program in recorded history, I watched ‘Jule and Julia’. It was a movie about cooking and blogging, two of my favorite things.
I actually enjoyed myself. Meryl Streep’s performance makes me wish I would have met the real Julia Child and Amy Adams makes an adorable blogger.
My first, eye-rollingly geeky first impression is that this movie makes blogging look easy. Within a few months, Julie’s blog gets over 50 comments in one day and by the end, the New York Times has featured her. I’ve been blogging going on three years. Honestly, I’m ecstatic when more than two of you reading this decide to comment.