::java.blogs best practices:: [/tech/java] (14:54)

I've put together a helpful list of java.blogs best practices to help other people out there more successfully utilize everyone's favorite java RSS aggregator. Enjoy.

• Make sure you reformat your RSS output daily so that your old articles show up on java.blogs every single day. If it was worth reading last week, it's worth reading again this week. If you don't control the RSS for your feed, you can mimic this by deleting and recreating your blog record.
• Immediately repost headlines from slashdot, serverside, or other news sites. Providing some actual content in addition to the link is not necessary and will only slow down the posting. Very few java.blogs readers actually read those other sites, so if you don't post, how will they know?
• If someone blogs about a funny website, make sure to make an entry for it and link to it. There are probably people who haven't seen the star wars kid and who don't know about the weapons of mass destruction.
• Talk about more well known bloggers constantly. Put their names in your titles, or at least in your content. All of their fans will want to read what you have to say. Hopefully with enough association, people will think you are really important too.
• Follow up popular posts with a Re: entry. Because RSS news readers don't have thread support, it's best to do this quickly to get extra hits. Otherwise there is little benefit.
• Use provocative titles, even if they don't really have much to do with your entry. These are particularly effective when your entry is only a link to another entry. In a pinch, use profanity or sexual innuendo. It works.
• Use meta-entries strategically. Rather than come up with real content, just talk about java.blogs or blogging in general. If abstraction is good for code, it must be good for blogging.