/> The Bronx Bolsheviks

Hey. The Bronx Bolshevik (as in the named one) left a comment that I take as soliciting my thoughts as a fellow blogger and NYC-based activist.

First off, glad to see some folks have joined on to the blog! Welcome to the net-revs comrades.

As for my thoughts on the blog, reflecting on my month or so experience in blogging, my overarching advice is to familiarize yourself with the web. Beyond the technical know-how, come up with a theory of the web and its users, and where you see yourself in that sort of ecosystem. The web is a place where dialectical materialism and understanding the interplay between the infrastructure and the superstructure will definitely help.

So on the material/infrastructural piece of things: first thing's first. Find a template you find visually attractive -- that'll just take a Google search for templates. Then tailor it to fit your needs (that'll take a CSS guide like the W3C's).

Next familiar with how links spread and proliferate throughout the web.

To start, I highly recommend looking at syndication/RSS feeds. They're neglected, but they're the way that you keep a regular readership coming.

The best approach I found was to read Digital Inspiration's guide as to how to consolidate your feed into a single Feedburner feed. It'll make the next few steps easier.

Next, check out iFeedReaders, who provides some handy tools (button-makers, etc.) for making your RSS feed easily accessible.

Now the immaterial, superstructural end of things -- getting your ideas out there, to sympathetic readers, and into the broader discourse -- that's a bit tougher.

The effort you can put toward that is plugging yourself into the blogosphere. The first step is getting a Technorati account, and using Technorati tags to insert yourself into the discourse (i.e., have the conversation around the tag "socialism" to lead to your page, and not some fuckhead anti-communist's).

So first thing's first: remember to tag all your postings, before you hit the publish button. Think of anything your post discusses, and then use Fintan's Technorati Tag Generator to turn the phrases you want to have Technorati return hits for into code that Technorati understands, that you'll put at the end of posts.

If you want the Technorati tag section styled, that'll take some work editing your template -- Fintan luckily includes code for that, too.

Also, one of the new ways blogs are getting "out there" and into the conversation is through social bookmarks (a primer on the idea of social bookmarking is available from Wikipedia). You can do yourself a big favor by making your blog as friendly as possible to it, using iFeedReaders's Social Bookmark Link Creator.

Of course, the big task is posting regularly and often. That's a matter of your choice in what you can accomodate given your obligations and political work. But also, you can do yourself an immense favor by posting links to your content in relevant places -- also remembering to be polite and not to falsely brand yourself a spammer.

So those are my tips and thoughts for now. I'm more than happy to answer any specific questions you guys might have.

Many thanks for the suggestions in this blog. I'll have a look at the links you suggest and see if I can improve my own blog at:http://mike-servethepeople.blogspot.com/