Better 31 days late than never

Everyone who reads Upstart Blogger regularly knows that a lot has happened in the last couple of months. I’ve pulled products, opened the blog up to new authors and started to make some huge changes behind the scenes that will become more obvious as 2010 progresses.

Usually I would write a post such as this at the beginning of the year but I wanted to take a little time to let a few things settle into place before setting anything in stone.

Now, if you’re all sitting comfortably I’ll begin.

Here is the Upstart Blogger 2010 statement of intent.

1. From 2010 onwards Upstart Blogger and all content contained within will be 100% free. That may sound superfluous since the blog is, obviously, free to access but the word free will be very important in 2010. Free is only free when it really is free. Free shouldn’t mean give me your email address and I’ll send you something for free. Free shouldn’t mean follow me on Twitter and I’ll give you something for free. And free shouldn’t mean link to me and I’ll give you something for free.

All of those manifestations of free, or fake frees as I call them, are something that will, I feel and hope, disappear completely in 2010.

2. I have already written a number of new guides that will be given away for free over the course of the year. These guides will teach the reader a range of things including how to start a blog, how to get started on Twitter, how to use social networking effectively, how to make money online, how to write and release your own ebook for free, how to build a community for free and many other topics which, based on my search engine referrals, are things that people are looking for.

The guide that shows you how to make money online will be something that will ruffle a lot of internet marketing guru feathers since it will show exactly how simple it is to make money online.

All of these guides will be free. You won’t need to link to me, you won’t need to email me, you won’t need to follow me and you certainly won’t need to pay me. The guides will be appear as blog posts, posted on a semi regular schedule over the course of 2010 starting later this month.

Simple. No strings attached. Each guide will be a self contained blog post.

At the end of the year the guides will be collated into a PDF eBook that will be, you’ve guessed it, given away for free.

Yes, free. No money required, no email required, no link required, no follow required. When the PDF eBook is ready I’ll write a blog post and in that blog post there will be a link to download the eBook.

Of course, if you have been reading the blog when I release the PDF eBook then you will already have all of the guides. I just thought it would be nice to have all of the guides in 1 easily downloadable and accessible place, for easy reference. And, since it’s free, since it’s all free, I doubt anyone will object to having more than distribution method.

3. More high quality established bloggers in diverse new niches. Quality takes time and finding quality bloggers that I can trust takes even longer. Currently there are 5 highly respected bloggers, all with established blogs, writing content for Upstart Blogger. This content will continue to be introduced to Upstart Blogger in the coming weeks and months. The design of Upstart Blogger will change slightly to accommodate this change.

This content will allow Upstart Blogger to move forward and spread across a wider range of niches. It will also allow me to spend more time on my music career, something which is the main personal focus of these changes.

4. Third party financial investment for Upstart Blogger and my other blogs has, as some of you have already guessed, been secured. This will allow me to completely separate all financial interest from the content, freeing up the creative process completely. As I have argued many times before, creativity can only flourish when it is not influenced, and therefore limited, by the need to make money. This does mean that third party advertising will appear on Upstart Blogger in the coming weeks and months but I will ensure that this does not overwhelm the content, nor your enjoyment as a reader.

In case anyone is concerned about this move I assure you that the benefits will far outweigh any downsides. Look at blogs like boingboing.net and smashingmagazine.com. Both are clearly funded by third party advertising in a way that doesn’t negatively impact the readers enjoyment of the blog.

I have always argued that traffic equals money. And, it would seem, my investors agree.

In addition to this I have secured personal sponsorship, outside of my commitment to Upstart Blogger, that will allow me to develop and achieve my personal interests and goals.

5. Old content will be removed from Upstart Blogger on an ongoing basis to ensure that all information is relevant and in line with the direction outlined in this statement. The blogosphere changes very quickly and it is now completely counter productive to hang on to old content that is outdated. As the web moves towards a more time sensitive, now based, focus it is important to realise that new content drives the new web, not old content.

Already, in the last few days, I have removed over 100 pages and blog posts from Upstart Blogger. My traffic has still continued to climb. This is because the posts I have removed were attracting such a small percentage of my traffic and, possibly, negatively affecting the ability of my new content to reach its full search engine exposure potential. This is something I have been studying for a little while, something called Google drag. My research into this subject shows that a blog’s traffic, in purely search engine terms, can be held back by content that is outdated.

Perhaps this is a move by the search engines to discourage blog bloat, maybe it’s simply to encourage to creation of new content. Either way, it means that I need to do some reasonably heavy pruning.

6. Once all of the above are fully underway I will return to the social networking arena, adopting a very different stance to the one that I adopted in the last half of 2009. Social networking, like blogging, has changed. This gives me the opportunity to make a fresh social networking start, inline with the ideas and ideals set out in this statement. I will not be actively promoting my social networking presence but will, in time, add a number of links to all of my blogs so that anyone wishing to network with me can do so easily.

That’s it. The main arc of this new direction can be summed up in 1 word.

Free.

Stay tuned. It’s going to be a very different year.

Ashley Morgan is a UK jazz trumpet player and owner of independent record label 447 Records. Ashley Morgan is the trumpet player with Enormous.