Bloggin’ For Fun and Very Little Profit
Daniel (I really want to call you BRK, but this email is about non-WoW related things.) I’ve emailed you before to ask about some NASA stuff, and remember that you work there. I’m trying to start a blog about Model Rocketry and would love some insight to how you got started. I’ve been reading your blog since before you got the WoWInsider gig, and just have a few general questions about how to get things rolling.
First of all- have you ever dabbled in Model rocketry? Do you still? I thought maybe they require it as a part of employment at NASA?
As far as blogs go, I know you have to have great, consistent content that lots of people want to read. What did you do to get your blog out there? Did you hit up other bloggers comments, subscribe to feedburner, technorati, reddit, etc.? Was it word of mouth?
Anyway thanks for taking time to read this, and keep up the great work. Here is the URL to the blog:
http://modelrocketmission.blogspot.com/
Thanks, Jesse
“I’ve been a World of Warcraft addict since March 2006, and as my one year anniversary of making my wife watch her bad 80s movies alone, I’ve come to realize that I just can’t go on posting in my guild’s forums, hoping some other hunter learns from my mistakes, gains some of my wisdom, or laughs at my jokes. But I love talking about my hunter, so I’m making this page for me to yap knowing full well that nobody is going to read it. Well, I don’t care, this is for me.”
We wrote that on our first post, 3 January 2007, and it still holds true. We like the fun screenshots, the bizarre pictures whose connection to the story can be perplexing, the belittling of the lesser classes, and the non-wow stuff. If it’s not fun, it’s work. Who wants to work as a hobby?
In our first month of blogging, we got 2000 hits. Today alone, BRK the Blog will get almost 5000 hits; we were quite anonymous for a long time.
When we decided we wanted a little exposure, we wrote to the Mark of the Wild blogger and asked if he’d put us in his Enormous List of WoW Bloggers. He did. Then we asked Paladin Sucks if he’d link to us. He did. As for requesting referal-links, that’s all we did.
Finally, we signed up for SiteMeter and Technorati and put some google-search terms in there somewhere. And we put a link to BRK the Blog in our signature on the Forums. That’s it.
Why has BRK the Blog become the #1 most incredible, sweetest-smelling WoW blog in the entire universe, including Canada? (Results of this totally unscientific poll were heavily infulenced by a marmoset, a box of Cuban cigars, and several pairs of socks).
We really have no idea. We know why we write it but have no clue why you choose to lurk or participate or whatever.
You’re reading it now, perhaps you could tell us.
As for model rocketry, it is not a requirement for space-program employment. When we were in school we did enjoy that particular hobby, but no longer. Putting satellites into orbit and sending probes to Pluto is enough for one day.
Good luck on the blog, Jesse!
Comments
21 Responses to “Bloggin’ For Fun and Very Little Profit”
Leave a Reply
-
Got Something To Say?
Email icon provided by Nexodyne. -
-
-
BRK's Site Meter
-
BRK License Agreement
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
-
BRK's RSS Feeds
Since I’d found this from WoWInsider I’m not sure how what I’d do without its entertainment. Especially when BRK involves his friends. Almost makes me wish I played on the Drenden server but I’m more than happy on Darrowmere.
BRK has style in his writing. He writes about stuff that people like to debate. These two things alone could probably bring readers back indefinitely.
/cheer
I have a hunter alt and found the blog through Petopia. I try to research and play my chosen class well and BRK is very helpful for that. Now, I’ll always be a Tankadin at heart, but my little Hunter is doing quite well. It’s a nice change of pace to go from the anti-dps of my Paladin Tank to the uber DPS of my Hunter.
I also think I’m getting rather attached to Bacon (my Boar formerly known as Bellygrub). I love his little tail wiggle and his little squel that just screams I’m gonna get you sucka!
Is that weird?
Top 3 reasons why BRK is on my iGoogle and still checked even when it says nothing new:
1. Third person referencing of BRK and Hobbes.
2. Humor involved in the smashing of others while still posting very analytical and philosophical aspects of WoW.
3. Because sometimes iGoogle doesn’t update its feed listing fast enough and I need the fix worse than warriors need heals in raids.
added bonus is that BRK also understands the joy of making others realize how squishy hunters and their pets make their targets seem.
Why do I choose to read it?
-Factual information about a class I don’t play.
-You have a hot wife so you must know something.
-You turned my huntard friend into a force to be reckoned with when it comes to utility and DPS.
-I’m bored at work.
-Good writing style.
I read because you say what I think in a more eloquent manner than I can. I find humor in how you descrbe our universe in azeroth. I read for the enjoyment that I find in your articles. I believe I would read if you talked about ogre turds that are lying on the ground.
Id skip the turds, but read everything else. Great job sir.Zeb
Why does BRK always say “we”? This blog is great, but don’t understand what’s up with all the “we” and “our” stuff. Does BRK employ a staff of writers or something?
1. cause ur so random
2. cause u have hot redhead friends that like to spank (TDCoE … call me)
3. cause u have relevant info on here i can send my hunters to if they want to improve
I found BRK through….. well I don’t really know how I found it. I do know that I’m a better hunter now. BRK even inspired me to start my own blog.
Do you have any requirements that I’d have to meet before you’d link to me BRK? I need traffic!!
@Anon
Hunter’s include their pets in everything we do. I didn’t kill that Mage, we(me and my pet) did
Off Topic,
I noticed the WoW-Head talent calculator doesn’t fit so well anymore at the bottom of the blog. I also heard that it has 10 more talent points to play with if you reset for level 80. If the trees stay the same, where would BRK put those extra 10 points?
I found the site through a link at Petopia.
Ever since then, I try to read BRK daily.
The style - this blog is good art
The information - I have used it
Bikutanda - Nazgrel
1. Third person referencing of BRK and Hobbes.
[linguistic rant]
Okay, this bugs me every time I see this. The WoWI trolls are really terrible for this. But here we go:
Third Person - he, she, it, they, proper nouns
Second Person - you (English only has one example; many others, including German, French, and Russian, have a plural/singular and/or formal/informal distinction)
First Person - I, we
“We” is the first person plural. Not third person anything.
[/linguistic rant]
As a side note, I have been using the BRK levelling spec for my own Hunter (now 40! Kitty mount FTW!), and one of the other Hunters in my guild will periodically drop the Prayer of Aimed Shot that BRK put up a couple of weeks back in instances (usually right before an MD pull). And now that I no longer have infinite Training Points, I’m starting to pay more attention to recommendations of talents based on Focus efficiency, etc. Definitely been a great boon to my education in Hunterism.
I’m right there with you, Doogie. Pet peeve, it’s first person plural, people!
/wields the Hammer of Grammar
http://meghanohara.org/wordpress/
Top three other peeves. No more use of the following phrases:
1. I don’t mean to be rude, but…
2. But I digress.
3. That being said,
1. It is usually funny.
2. I enjoy reading about other folks experiences as hunters.
3. Decent advice.
I agree with kunukia…
I think a lot of the success of the blog is obviously do to BRK but also the word of mouth about this site. If anytime I get a hunter question from a fellow hunter I will help them out as best I can and I always refer them to this site.
Have being BRK for about 8 months now was on of the first WoW sites I found when learning how to play WoW. BRK is a Hunter blog but yet I play a Paladin, imagine that.
Thing is you learn all kinds of stuff reading here at BRK that many classes can learn from and get educated at WoW.
BRK blog is Funny, Humorous, Educational, Analytical, Tactical, often just plain damn funny but with a sharp jab of Truth. Thats why i read here multiple times daily. Hell the comments are just as whacky and funny, make me laugh my ass off also.
I read BRK because it’s amusing and very informative. Ever since I started reading BRK, my nubling-hunter (and nubling-WoW-in-general) skills have slowly made way for awesome hunterness.
I have recently started to receive compliments from people regarding my hunter competence, these are huge feel-good moments for me but I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have gotten to that point if not for BRK, all the comments that people leave in BRK, and other good hunter blogs too (like Hunter’s Mark).
Huge props to this community for being awesome and general and helping out a newbie like me… I will definitely continue reading so I can continue to improve! =)
I found your site linked from Crafter’s Tome. I’m ridiculously ignorant about all classes that aren’t what I play, so I like reading about how hunters work. I’ve tried finding similar blogs for other classes but so far haven’t come across anything that has been such an effective and fun to read explanation of an entire class. Rock on, I like having a place to tell hunters to go when they think they can only effectively trap twice or that a resist means a wipe.
I read because BRK paid me.
I kid
Pretty much the reasons listed, had a buddy start a hunter with me because of this info posted here.
/BRKButtKissingAndPissingOffTJmodeoff
Rabid