Fav blogs parts III and IV, at least

Holy Letterman-like link-love, Batman! Randy Morin lists me in his “top 10 sources for finding stuff to blog about when my brain has gone numb and can’t make up any crap myself”. I’m quite honored that Randy regards me as a high-quality crap provider. No, seriously. To find myself on any list that also contains the controversial father of blogging, the Rubel (with or without a cause), and all seven of the others on Randy’s list — kinda makes me dizzy. Plus, to get an endorsement like that from Randy — well, I just hope I can keep the illusion going for him. Randy is one of my favorite bloggers. I subscribe to four of his blogs (Besting Adwords, Destroy All Malware, IBLOGthere4iM, and The RSS Blog). Randy’s posts always pack punch. He gets right to the point, usually with a twist of humor. I like my humor twisted, and I get a lot of information quickly and easily from Randy.

Then today I also got a “welcome back from the long weekend” from Kathy Sierra. Yes, the Kathy Sierra. I might have just wet my pants. While I emulate many bloggers, Kathy’s content consistently achieves a level of “wow” unto which I have not yet aspired. She gets me thinking in new ways about business relationships in areas where I thought I had thought it all through thoroughly. Unlike Randy, her posts are usually pretty long, but as I said to TDavid the other day, an entry can be just as long as you can hold the reader’s attention. Once I start reading one of Kathy’s posts, I can’t click away until I get to the end. Her rank in Technorati’s top 100 is well-deserved. I’m honored to have her as a reader of my humble blog.

My buddy TDavid noticed my moment in the sun on Techmeme the other day, and shouted out his congratulations. Part of my comment on that post is worth repeating here:

Yeah, I was pretty jazzed when I started getting referrals from that Techmeme entry. But not any more jazzed than the first time that you linked to me, or the first time Randy did, or apotheon. It’s cool that I got my Google juice pumped up to the point that Techmeme noticed what I wrote about, but it means more to me to have someone who I read decide that my content is worth linking to.

Gosh, I’ve only been blogging since January. Advice for fellow newbies: just lay it out there. Write what’s on your mind. No holding back (except truly sensitive information). No pretensions. You don’t have to plan and craft each entry, just let it pull itself together as you write. It’s jazz. Genuineness counts more than anything. Playfulness writes the material for you. Don’t take yourself seriously. Have fun, and your readers will have fun, too.

A big thank you to all of my readers. I love dishing this stuff out, and I’m glad you keep coming back for more.