Flux Research: Online Business Models

Flux Research Update

I'm focused elsewhere but I link to relevant posts and news articles on a regular basis and, moving forward, will be using Diigo to post links to this blog.

Flux Research: Back on Hiatus

So I've decided to focus on This Business Of Blogging for the moment in terms of writing about blogging and web publishing.  This will include some discussion of online business models but not as I envisioned it here.

Stay tuned.  There are scenarios that include the relaunch of this blog with a deep focus on online and mobile business models.

Flux Research & Related Projects Update

For the tiny handful of folks paying attention, I want to update what's happening with this project.

I've been holding off on posting for a few related reasons. The kind of blog I'd want to do about online business models would involve fairly high volume posting and also require my shifting to Movable Type based on what I think would work best for a variety of reasons.

It would also require me to start tracking and processing news and information at a rate that's a little beyond me unless I go in for a really serious commitment. I've been considering doing that because what I envision would be very satisfying, I believe, both for myself and for those trying to do business online.

But I'm not sure I can make that commitment right now and it's suddenly complicated by the fact that I've started blogging about blogging and web publishing at This Business of Blogging (& Web Publishing).

That blog was launched to support some workshop activity I've been developing locally in Raleigh, NC and I was planning on occasionally dropping more general posts about some of the things I've learned about blogging on the way.

But I'm finding myself wanting to post there more frequently and realizing that some of what I would do here could also be done there without the high volume requirement I envision for Flux Research.

So I'm going to work on that blog's design a bit, do some more posting and see how that feels. That might also free this domain up for some more personal posting on the subject of change that has interested me since I first started reading about the late 60s and social change back when I was but a young lad in the early 70s.

I'm also developing some other projects that are low volume but require periodic attention, such as Hip Hop Research, an information resource focused on developing a book list of academic studies of hip hop. If I launch another high volume project in addition to ProHipHop, that would effectively kill these other projects and I'm not wanting to do that.

If I start doing online business model related posts at This Business of Blogging, I'll update here and probably make a final decision at that point.

If you're interested in this topic and want to drop me a line, please do so: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

Otherwise, stay tuned and consider subscribing to This Business of Blogging since, no matter what I decide, I will be doing some related posts over there.

Update from Behind the Scenes

I've been working on this topic a lot, really, I have!  Basically, I don't want to do a lot of posting until I work out some things about focus and organization, though that will continue to evolve over time once I'm posting regularly.

The biggest issue is to bridge my own experiences, watching developments related to online business models since I first started creating websites around early 2001 and exploring those possibilities on my own sites beginning soon thereafter, with the experiences of others that go beyond my needs.

Since my approach has always been to hoard this information for myself, there's a bit of sorting out and broadening to do while simultaneously focusing in on relevant information.

But that process is coming along just fine so, if you're watching, posts will soon come.

Diigo: FAIL [not exactly] [final update: i like!]

Diigo's great till you need it to do something like post to your blog or import your Google Notebook.

Damn.  More failure.

Web 2.0 truly sucks.  So much hype.  So little working product.

My Bad:

I used the advanced option to give them all the info I thought they needed to log into TypePad.  Diigo said it was valid but could never post to TypePad.

I finally tried WordPress and just did the basic configuration and it worked.

So I deleted the TypePad blog and reentered with the basic info and that worked.

Couldn't have gotten this info via Diigo's forums.  So do I trust that it's working now, given that every time I've used something like this it's eventually truly failed?

Don't know.

Final Update:

Now I'm digging Diigo!  Results soon.

Bonus Note:

The Google Notebook import just took a while though I haven't looked at the details!

Flux Research to Drop Publish2, Back to Unpleasantly Delicious [or something]

I'm so disappointed in Publish2.

At first they seemed like the perfect alternative to Delicious for sorting out my research focus for this blog.  Delicious pages load so slowly it's excruciating and I've wasted a huge aggregate amount of time over the last couple of years due to that fact alone.

I thought Publish2 would be the answer for links I wanted to make public while focusing in on where I want to take Flux Research.  In fact, the Publish2 links have been my primary activity on this project of late.

Big Problem: you can't remove tags from your account once they're created and the linking process doesn't offer a drop down menu of your own custom tags.

That means if you misspell something or change your mind about how you want to categorize something or forget exactly what custom tag you used, you still have the mistakes sitting there in your account making things more confusing in a variety of ways.  The tag is gone but it looks like it's still there and includes the last number of links you had under that tag.

Worse still, because of that fact, it took me a while to discover that at least 2 or 3 of my 15 or so categories aren't actually working, though I know they should be.  I'm getting error messages for categories that I created and know I didn't change.

I was actually creating a text file to keep up with my custom tags, stupid as that workaround sounds, when I accidentally discovered that key categories were gone.

Web 2.0.  Disappointing as it ever was.

If you have suggestions for other bookmarking services and you're not just promoting one with which you're involved, please drop a link in the comments section.

Flux Research Returns via "Link Journalism"

So, I decided to try out Publish2 and figure out what "link journalism" is all about.

So far it seems like bookmarking by journalists, which sounds like a flippant remark except that, almost every time I check out web tools for journalists I feel like they're clumsier versions of tools that bloggers and, yes, civilians already use.

I'll come back to that theme, since changes in journalism are one of my interests, though I'm sorry to say it's a field where I'm more struck by the mistakes than by the triumphs.  And I do see some things they're doing that represent the beginning of a useful service tailored to journalists, and that's how I think web tools should be built, so I'm not passing judgment.  I'm just saying.

But I do greatly appreciate being able to use their system, in fact, it may lead to me moving off TypePad and onto another platform because I'd like to publish the links on the site rather than simply having a sidebar widget.  Now that Delicious and TypePad don't seem to get along, I may have to move this project to Wordpress.

I don't want to do that but that's how it goes sometimes.

I also want to thank Publish2 because seeing these particular bookmarks outside my now massive Delicious account is enabling me to initiate a clearer process of thinking my way into certain areas of interest.

Because I've been trained as a qualitative researcher by cutting edge social scientists, with additional methodology classes from and independent study related to multiple fields beyond my doctoral requirements (PhD in Cultural Studies, OSU, 2000), I feel I need to explain that this is one approach in which the rather overmarketed concept of the "research question" is replaced by a process in which things aren't pinned down so rapidly since we don't have to kill it to study it.

More on all this to follow though I'll mostly be going quick and light for the time being.

At Publish2:
Clyde Smith: Links
RSS Feed

Introducing: Clyde Smith

It felt like I went public today by linking out to other blogs and sending a trackback so I guess it's time to share a little personal information.

Flux Research: It's a Clyde Thing

Vita Highlights:

MLS (Library Science): Texas Woman's University (2006)
Phd (Cultural Studies in Education): The Ohio State University (2000)
MA (Dance & Performance Studies): UNC-Greensboro (1995)

Academic Research:

Alternative Forms of Data Presentation
Nonlinear Science and the Postpositivist Researcher
Course Proposals: Art for Engineers

Web Publishing:

Cultural Research
netweed
ProHipHop

This is a one man show, like many of my current projects, though I've been a team player before and am becoming one once again [that's called foreshadowing].

If you wish to be in touch, please do:
clydesmith(at)culturalresearch(dot)org

Peace.