(Updated with additional info @ 2:11 p.m. 9/23/09)

To say Matt Mullenweg loves WordPress is to state the obvious.

Mullenweg created the widely used blogging software and runs Automattic, the San Francisco company that offers it as a free platform or a software app you can use to run a self-hosted blog. (Disclaimer: I use WordPress.com for this blog.)

Mullenweg was in Portland last weekend to spread some of that WordPress love around at WordCampPortland, one of many conferences for WordPress disciples that’s cropped around the country in the past few years.

Work obligations kept me from going in person. But I listened to Mullenweg over a live stream that WordCampPortland organizers set up so anybody could feel like they were part of the party no matter where they were – except for the beer. Unfortunately nobody’s managed to live stream a keg, but given enough time I’m sure Portland’s developer community will figure it out one day. But I digress. As of Sept. 22, WordCampPortland organizer Aaron Hockley was still working on getting a recording of Mullenweg’s talk and the rest of the live stream online. Check here for more info.

Mullenweg, 25, has obviously talked about WordPress a million times because he’s one smooth presenter. In fact, if you followed my tweets at #wcpdx, you probably read me say Matt Mullenweg is the Justin Timberlake of blogging: funny, smart, cute and a natural in front of a crowd. Again, I digress.

In an extended Q&A session with the WordPress faithful at the two-day meeting, Mullenweg touched on a number of issues of interest to writers who blog and bloggers who write. Here’s a quick summary:

Blogs as websites – More people are using blogging software such as WordPress as a content management system. That’s a fancy way of saying they’re using a blog as a Website. When Mullenweg asked for a show of hands, about 90 percent of the people at WordCampPortland indicated that’s how they use WordPress. The number of freelance writers using blogs as websites might not be as high, but my guess is it’s large and growing. Here’s an example of what a blog doubling as a Website could look like, this brochure site for pianist Jane Coop.

Word and Wordpress – I write posts in the editor built into WordPress.com. It works for me. But I know other writer-bloggers who prefer Microsoft Live Writer or another editor. I didn’t realize until Mullenweg mentioned it that it’s also possible to write posts in Word. Possible, but messy – unless you use a tool on the WordPress editor to delete a lot of extraneous code Word adds when you copy and paste text into the WordPress.com editor. You’ll find instructions explaining how to fix that in a post on the WordPress.com Support forum called Microsoft Word. Thanks to fellow freelance writer @JaneLangille for finding that and sharing it with me.

One-button upgrades – With a little coding, it’s possible to upgrade your self-hosted WordPress blog to the newest version of the software with a touch of a button. True confessions: I didn’t take notes fast enough on this topic. If there’s anyone out there reading this who caught this part of Mullenweg’s presentation or knows more about this, please leave a comment and I’ll update this portion of the post with the info. Update: The latest version of the WordPress.org software allows for one-click upgrades. See explanation from @verso below.

You can hear from Mullenweg on WordPress and related subjects in an interview he did on the local Strange Love Live podcast radio show between WordCampPortland sessions.

Never been to a WordCamp? You can read first-hand accounts of two people’s experiences here and here (caution, technical language ahead), then check out WordCamp Central’s upcoming events to check if there’s one scheduled for your area soon, or here to organize your own.

You’ll probably see more from me about WordPress in coming weeks as I move this site from the free Wordpress.com service to the hosted WordPress.org service. Actually, I’ve hired someone else to do the heavy lifting – thanks Ron! – but I’ll be doing a fair amount of work as well. Cleaner design, same content.

Got your own WordPress love story? Do share.

An argument that’s often made in favor of writing for content aggregators – my term for sites like Demand Studios, Helium, Associated Content, Studio101, etc. that pull together works created by a multitude of providers- is that it’s easy to get work. You sign up, in some cases, go through some type of try out or training period, then grab whatever articles are available for writing, or write on the subjects of your choosing.

By writing for content aggregators, proponents argue, writers can bypass the often lengthy query process – sending pitches, waiting for answers, and dealing with rejections. Instead of plowing their time and brain power into queries and other marketing endeavors, they can immediately direct all their energies toward paying work.

But settling for easy money is a mistake.

Freelancing isn’t about writing. It’s about sales.

To be good at freelance writing, you have to be good at sales.

You have to be able to sell a concept. You have to be able to sell how a concept fits a particular audience. And you have to be able to sell yourself as the best person to do the work.

By bypassing the sales process, you shortchange yourself from the very beginning by accepting work that’s easy to get – and carries a low rate as a result.

If you’ve ever written about business, you may know about sales cycles. Some products have short sales cycles. Consumables like food or fashion have short sales cycles. A farmer picks apples, sells them to the wholesaler, grocer or farmer’s market and people buy them. Other products have incredibly long sales cycles. Pharmaceutical reps may call on a doctor’s office for months before getting them to agree to recommend a certain type of prescription medication to their patients. Boeing may spend years – years – courting a major airline or a country before convincing them to buy a fleet of multi-million dollar airliners.

Sales cycles for freelancing articles for print or online publications – not including content aggregators – fall somewhere in the middle. It’s not often you email a pitch to an editor and hear back the same day – it may happen if you write breaking news or work as a contributing editor for a publication on a regular basis. But if you’re pitching cold – the equivalent of a sales rep cold calling prospective accounts – it’s pretty rare to hear back right away. Sales cycles for freelance pieces could be weeks, maybe even months, and include multiple rounds of email conversations with potential clients. As I noted here recently, not long ago I heard from an editor I’d sent a letter of introduction 18 months before. I ended up doing a big project for her and more work could be ahead.

Another reason freelancers avoid selling: they can’t handle rejection, or they’d rather not deal with it. Nobody likes hearing “no.” But in sales, rejection is par for the course.

So freelance sales cycles can be long and the outcome isn’t guaranteed. Is that a reason to chuck it all and grab low-paying work, simply because it’s the path of least resistance? For some that answer is yes. For others, the rewards of higher paid work outweigh the risk of waiting out a long sales cycle, and the risk of getting a “no” instead of a “yes.”

Good salespeople know, the key to limiting your risk is doing adequate due diligence on potential clients ahead of time to understand the needs they might have that you could fill, all the better to target your “sales” pitch – that also includes researching which markets aren’t buying right now, so you don’t end up bumping your head against a wall of rejection. Also important: having enough proposals in the pipeline so the deals you land are enough to keep you busy working at the income goals that you’ve set, and continuously prospecting new markets.

Next time you’re getting ready to go after new work, don’t think of yourself as a writer. Think of yourself as a salesperson, and writing is the product you’re selling.

The 2009 Online Journalism Awards finalists were announced yesterday and a glance through the list shows the many ways news and the news business are being redefined.

Many finalist projects are the work of traditional newspaper companies that have invested major time and money into their digital news efforts. As you would expect, the New York Times, Washington Post Digital, BBC News and other big-time publishers are well-represented, along with a handful of small and medium-sized papers – including two here in Oregon, the Oregonian for its poignant series on a pregnant woman’s battle with cancer, and the Daily Astorian for its breaking coverage of a plane crash in a nearby beach town.

But many finalists are online-only publications that aim to pick up where cash-strapped newspapers have left off, especially on investigative news. One of the most ambitious is The Chauncey Bailey Project, a collaboration between more than two dozen reporters, photographers and editors from 23 Bay Area print, broadcast and online news organizations. They worked together to investigate the Aug. 2., 2007, shooting death of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey while he was investigating suspicious activities at a local business. Back in the day, competitive news organizations wouldn’t have dreamed of voluntarily entering into such a collaboration, which goes to show just how much times have changed.

Some other finalists projects from online-only publications:

• Women.Children.Crisis – An online “gateway” run by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting that compiles stories from multiple international sources about the adversities and dangers faced by women and children in crisis situations.
• Muckety – A daily news and information site based on online databases, research and old-fashioned journalism that maps “the paths of power and influence.”
• A staggering swindle - A multi-part, mulitmedia investigation of how a local man used the “easy money excesses of the housing boom” to scam $12.5 million from fake condo sales, by VoicesofSanDiego.org, an independent nonprofit hyperlocal news site.

2009 Online Journalism Award winners will be announced on Saturday, Oct. 3, at the conclusion of the Online News Association annual convention in San Francisco.

From what I’ve heard, the last few ONA conventions have been well worth attending, but I’m predicting this year’s will be the best ever. The pace of change in the news business has accelerated. More laid off reporters and editors are looking for ways to reshape their careers in an online mold. Content management systems, mobile apps and other tech tools have reached a level of maturity and cost that makes them manageable and affordable for even the smallest online publisher. I’m excited to be making the trip – and while I’m there I’ll reporting on what I learn.

If you’re going to ONA let me know – I’d love to host a meetup of fellow freelancers to talk about how independent writers fit into the new world of online news.

How do you rate?

You can find out with a Ratings service WordPress.com recently rolled out for users of its free blogging platform.

Why bloggers will like this: it’s a quick and easy way for readers to provide feedback on your posts – and what other people are saying about them – even if they don’t want to take the time to leave a comment. It’s also a good way to see which subjects readers like, and which they don’t.

The service is courtesy of PollDaddy, creator of a polling software application WordPress’ parent company Automattic bought in 2008 and subsequently integrated into the blogging platform.

WordPress.com users will see the Ratings service in the left column on the main Dashboard. Click on it to open the Ratings panel, which includes options for adding ratings to your blog posts, pages and readers’ comments.

Use the Advanced Settings feature to have ratings appear above or below a post, set up a 5-star system or a Nero-style thumbs up or thumbs down, and choose options such as colors and placement.

Once you’ve set everything up, track feedback using the Reports feature, which appears under the Ratings link on the main Dashboard.

This WordPress TV demo explains more about how to set up the Ratings application. You’ll find more help for getting started on WordPress’ Ratings Support page.

I’ve already enabled this feature for posts and reader comments. If you like what you see, please let me know.

It wasn’t so long ago I was telling anyone who’d listen why I didn’t use Twitter.

Then I started using Twitter.

And never stopped. For the last eight months I’ve tweeted every day, with the occasional weekend off. I tweet eight, 10, 12 times a day: when I put up a new blog post, when one of my stories is published, when I need a source, when a random thought simply needs to be shared – though in hindsight some of those would have been better left unsaid.

Until last week.

I took an honest-to-goodness vacation away from email, blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn and everything connected to being connected.

Guess what?

The sky didn’t fall. The earth stayed on its axis. And the bottom didn’t fall out of my business – I even had a few assignments in my inbox when I got back.

It was easier than I thought to unplug. It helped to be stuck with the middle of nowhere, the only available Internet access whatever could be siphoned off a neighbor’s unsecured wireless connection.

Going without was good for the soul and apparently didn’t hurt my standing on Twitter – I returned to a few dozen new followers.

So how to unplug?

Tell people you’re leaving. If you stop tweeting without explanation, followers may think you’ve given up on Twitter. Give them a head’s up. If you don’t want to broadcast the fact that you’re leaving town for safety reasons, be a bit cagey about what you’re doing. “I’ll be taking a break from here for the next few days” works. So does “Busy elsewhere. See everyone in a week.”

Automate. If you can’t bear going a whole week without saying something, use a tool such as TweetLater or TwitResponse to send tweets at predesignated intervals in your absence.

Go mobile. Leave your laptop home and tweet from your iPhone or BlackBerry using an application like Twitterrific, PocketTweets or TwitterBerry. Twitter’s applications list has a lot more.

Tweet from vacation, sparingly. Who wants to spend their precious downtime tethered to a machine, even if it’s only a cell phone? Limit the number of times you log on. Or allow yourself a specific time of day or amount of time to check in, update your status and upload vacation pics.

Then go play.

Got your own story of going off the social media grid? Share!

I’m putting in one more plug for Digital Journalism Camp, a free, one-day conference covering a variety of writing and new media topics that will take place Saturday, Aug. 1, at the offices of the Oregonian here in Portland.

What is Digital Journalism Camp? According to Abraham Hyatt, a friend and fellow Portland freelancer who’s organizing it:

This isn’t about bloggers vs. reporters, or old media vs. new media. We’re all on the same team. And this conference is about how we, as journalists, are innovating right now — what’s working, what’s not, and how we can get better at what we do.

As of this afternoon, close to 120 reporters, writers and other media types were registered – good for networking!

I’m will be moderating a 10 a.m. panel on hyperlocal news with panelists from The Portland Sentinel, NeighborhoodNotes.com and CapitolHillSeattle. Then at 11 a.m., I’ll be teaching a class on journalism basics, including finding sources, fact checking and making corrections.

Because this is a camp style conference, and because it’s Portland and even the journalists here are tech geeks, there’ll be an unconference going on in one of the rooms all day – which means in the morning, everyone who’s there will collectively decide what topics will be covered in that space.

• Here’s the complete schedule.
• Here’s a list of speakers, panelists and moderators.
• Here’s where to sign up.

If you can’t be there, you can follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #journpdx – I’ll be tweeting from the conference, though not during my own presentations.

You can follow @journopdx now for updates in advance of the conference.

See you there.

Mark Ranalli makes no excuses for Helium.com. The website he helped start in 2006 isn’t the New York Times and never will be, and that’s OK with Ranalli, who describes the venture as a pro-am writing platform, where like cream, the best writing rises to the top and is compensated accordingly.

One of a new breed of online publishers that some call content aggregators and others content mills, Helium.com has over a short time amassed 150,000 contributors – though according to published reports, only about 10,000 of those are regulars – 1 million articles and $17 million in venture capital funding. The Andover, Massachusetts, company has also signed content sharing deals with three community newspaper chains that pay its writers for original work and reprint rights. But the bulk of Helium writers earn money from click-through advertising according to a computer-based algorithm that takes into account reader interest in the subject matter and how highly articles are rated by other Helium writers, among other things. The company claims its writers had collectively earned more than $1 million by last May.

I recently interviewed Ranalli, Helium’s president and CEO, for a story on content aggregators for an upcoming issue of a national writers’ magazine (I’ll share the link when the story’s out this fall). Here’s what he had to say about the site’s publishing model, how writers make money on it and where he sees the publishing industry headed. I’ve edited our interview for length and clarity.

I call Helium a content aggregator for lack of a better term. What do you call it?
The industry hasn’t accepted a term. We think of Helium as a writing platform. The difference between how we view what we’re doing and how some professional writers view us is a mindset shift. Professional writers are used to looking for work from a publisher then getting paid for their work. We’re allowing the writer to go direct to the consumer. We help them monetize their work and collectively build something of value to all of them.

How does Helium work?
We have two core offerings. One is a publishing platform where anyone can write, improve their skills, build their digital persona and build relationships among other writers. Our members bring the content and operate as the editorial staff. They produce and evaluate the content and the best writers and articles are compensated. It’s a platform more like eBay than it is anything writers have seen before.

And the second way you’re making money?
That’s our marketplace, where the relationship is more like the traditional freelance model. Now that we have this huge writing community, we’ve been approached by thousands of publishers and they ask our writers to produce content for them based on their needs. If one wants a 500-word article on fly fishing destinations in Montana, they give us the specs and we’ve set up a marketplace where our writers can identify what assignments are available, and if they’re selected to do it they’re paid. Some publishers pay $300 an article. Some pay as little as $40 or $50.

Who are your publishing partners – Hearst is one, right?
Hearst uses us a couple ways. Content that exists on Helium.com is also available to our publishers as stock content. Many newspapers have advertorials and sections that don’t require unique, custom-written content. For instance, a local newspaper on Connecticut might be looking for an article on day hikes. We have a gallery of 1 million articles on Helium.com and one of them might be on that topic. Compensation depends. It could be $10 or $15 for one-time use of that article. The writer gets a byline and they retain the copyright so they can resell it again. It’s like a reprint fee. Today we’re working with 6 Hearst newspapers in Connecticut. That’s initially. The expectation is to roll out to other papers.

What types of stories do your publishing partners buy?
We’re not hard news, we’re features. Breaking news journalism, front page stuff is a very different kind of content creation and serves a different model than the travel section. Lead times are different. As a newspaper, you don’t need to have a full time staff writer to write the travel section. We’re not causing this, we’re providing a solution for it.

What other publishers are you working with?
We have a relationship with Community Newspaper Holdings and GateHouse Media. We’re working with some of the world’s largest most respective publishers, but the vast majority of Helium’s partners remain anonymous. If you were a consumer magazine, you wouldn’t necessarily want to signal what’s going to show up in next month’s magazine by (announcing a partnership with Helium). We’re also working with hundreds of long-tail publishers.

What types of people are Helium contributors?
Our members range from professionals in their fields to retirees who spent 35 years in marketing and now write about marketing. They’re J-schools students who are looking to build portfolios. They’re Harvard educated mothers of three. I think of it as a pro-am. It includes some hobbyists but also some professionals. A reason for professionals to write here is we’re a credible brand for allowing writers to build a digital persona. Just because you start a blog doesn’t mean anybody reads it. Helium promotes your content, we help with monetization, we pay you based on the value of that content. It’s a system.

So writing for Helium is an alternative to having a blog?
I liken blogging to screaming in the woods. Sixty-five percent of them are never read. People are out there trying to make it with a blog and not even their mothers are reading their stuff. Blogging is a wonderful concept. It’s indicative of the power of the Internet to go direct to the consumer, share your thoughts and not be forced to go through a filter. But filters are valuable. The editor of the New York Times is a great filter. Helium acts as a filter that allows everyone to participate. The writers become a collective rating system that filters for quality. Publishing a lot of bad content doesn’t do anyone any good. There are other things we do. Being cognizant of SEO, we make sure Helium is linked around the web. And we’re selling ads and generating revenue.

How much do Helium writers make?
In 2007 our top writer made $500 and in 2008 it was $5,000. That’s not pay-the-mortgage money. People aren’t spending 40 hours a week on Helium. But $5,000 is better than a stick in the eye. This year our top writer will be on track for close to $10,000. We have writers on the site who’ve done 25 articles and made hundreds of dollars. I’m sure there are people who’ve written 100 articles made nothing. The devil’s in the details. Anyone who invests their energy in Helium will have a good outcome. I don’t believe you could work 40 hours a week on Helium and replace a full-time salary. But the effort of the community is making Helium a better platform and that’s creating opportunity. This is a rising tide that lifts all boats.

Exactly how do Helium writers get paid?
It’s an algorithm based on a daily calculation of what content has been created and how your content is rated. Well-rated content earns more than poorly-rated content. The second part of the algorithm is the value of your content to advertisers. The third part is general interest in the subject matter. For example, we know personal finance as a section gets a lot of readers. It’s a recession, people want information on how to save money and invest. So we look at, can you monetize the general area of content, do people read it, and are you a good writer. Those factors go into how much you’re earning every day. We’ve been more sophisticated than just who clicked on an ad, which could cause click fraud and introduced other funny dynamics.

What’s your affiliation with the Society of Professional Journalists and National Press Club?
Today not all writing happens through the Washington Post or Time magazine. But these professional organizations didn’t know how to evaluate (unaffiliated) writers. Helium’s system sorts out who the good writers are, and we’d love to have the good ones apply for membership. So if you’re a starred writer on Helium, you can apply to the SPJ. Same with the National Press Club.

Who’s your competition: Associated Content? HubPages?
I view HubPages as more of a micropublisher. They build a system that’s every man for himself. You build your page, create it for SEO and it’s all about click throughs. Squidoo has that same model: lots of people, almost a blog aggregator. I don’t view them as competition. We’re more of a publisher or information resource.

At what stage of their life cycles are content aggregators?
They’re all toddlers. If you think about it, the entire web publishing model is in its infancy. About.com is one of the oldest, they’re 12 years old, now part of the New York Times. These businesses are an opportunity for writers. If you look at the percent of revenue a traditional publisher pays writers it’s typically 5 percent. Helium will be sharing a far greater percentage of revenue generated on the platform. If you believe these businesses will achieve the kind of scale of a professional publisher, the opportunity is there for writers to make a lot of money. But you gotta get here.

When you first  start blogging, it’s easy to come up with things to write about. Especially if you’ve been contemplating starting a blog for awhile, you probably have a stockpile of ideas you can’t wait to get online.

But after a few weeks or months, you may wake up one morning, turn on the computer and realize, I got nothing.

Some bloggers never get past that point, which explains why so many blogs are abandoned each year.

But it’s not hard to come up with blog post subjects, even when the idea well appears to have run dry.

In fact, after blogging for a while, you may see inspiration for blog posts in almost anything you do, see or say.

When it comes to coming up with ideas for blog posts, here are some common tricks of the trade:

Read through comments your readers are leaving – Are they asking questions? Are there certain things they comment on more than others? If so, those questions or comments could be the kernels of other posts.

Read other blogs – Look for blogs on topics you write about to see if there are common themes or timely topics you could pick up on your own blog, and refer back to the original of course.

Read, watch or listen to the news – Use a news event, commentary or trend as a starting point.

Give advice – Blog readers love how-tos and lists, especially if it’s not something they’re already read 100 times before.

Read posts by popular bloggers – Old pros like Chris Brogan or ProBlogger have written extensively on how to consistently come up with ideas for blog posts. Here’s Christ Brogan’s Best of list of his most popular blog posts ever, and a good one from ProBlogger called A freelance writer is always full of ideas.

Re-read your older posts. Is there a thread or idea you could expand on? Is there something you overlooked the first time you that’s screaming to be said? Does something warrant an update?

Review comments you leave on other people’s blogs. Could your reply serve as the basis for your own post. I tend to do this a lot – hey, as long as I’m writing something, I might as well use it on my own blog, right? In fact, this post started out as reply to a message I read on a writer’s forum from a freelancer who was worried she’d run out of things to say on her almost month-old blog (maybe she should check out that ProBlogger post).

Ask for suggestions. It’s not admitting defeat to ask for help, especially from the people who already read you – they’re there because they’re interested in what you have to say, so ask them what they’d like to hear more of.

I never know when I’ll get an idea for a blog post, and if I don’t act quickly, it could fly away forever. So when inspiration strikes and I’m at my keyboard, I scroll over to my blog and write up a few quick notes. Then when I have time to sit down and compose a post I don’t have to start from scratch. If I pound out a rough draft in the heat of the moment I can capture the emotion of what inspired me to write in the first place. I can always go back later – the next day or even a week or month later – with my editor hat on, rework what I’ve written so it reads better and add links, images, etc.

When I started blogging I had a dozen or so blog posts started in my drafts queue. Nineteen months into it, I’ve got the beginnings of 60+ posts hanging out in my drafts queue – some are a few sentences, others just titles and still others I should probably delete because they’re outdated or I can’t remember what they were supposed to be about.

But I can’t imagine running out of things to say.

A while back, I urged freelance writers who were thinking of working for content sites like Helium.com or Demand Studios to take a stab at hyperlocal news instead.

Hyperlocal news is a catch-all phrase that describes websites or blogs devoted to covering a city, town or neighborhood, or a specific beat within a city or neighborhood like biking, books or tech start ups. Think of them as the 21st century equivalent of the neighborhood paper you used to pick up on the street corner, or the weekly paper your parents subscribed to so they could read about your high school sports teams.

Hyperlocal news ventures have popped up around the country, and I’ve mentioned several successful ones here before, including SealBeachDaily.com and NewzJunky.

If you’re interested in learning more about hyperlocal news, and you live within driving distance of Portland, plan now to attend a panel discussion on hyperlocal news I’m moderating at Portland’s Digital Journalism Camp on Saturday, Aug. 1.

Digital Journalism Camp PDX is a free one-day conference on the future of journalism and what it means to media practitioners. To date, close to 85 journalists, bloggers and freelance writers have signed up to attend.

Camp-style conferences - very popular right now in tech circles – are less formal than traditional conferences and normally include a mix of sessions on pre-determined topics along with sessions conference goers choose once they get there.

Organizer and Portland freelance writer Abraham Hyatt is still putting the finishing touches on the Digital Journalism Camp agenda. But the day is likely to include discussions of digital storytelling, podcasting, SEO for journalists, new media revenue models and more.

The hyperlocal news panel I’m moderating will feature proprietors of three ventures in Portland and Seattle:

• Cornelius Swart, publisher and managing editor, Portland Sentinel, a neighborhood newspaper in North Portland with a strong online component.
• Ken Aaron, co-founder, Neighborhood Notes, a news and entertainment site that covers Portland’s four quadrants.
• Justin Carder, Neighborlogs, a Seattle hyperlocal news site.

For a little preview of what we’ll be talking about, here’s Justin Carder’s analysis of how much money he thinks he’ll make this year at Neighborlogs, roughly $14,000.

Digital Journalism Camp takes place Saturday, Aug. 1, 9:30 a.m. to mid-afternoon and will be held at The Oregonian (yes, we get the irony too), 1320 SW Broadway, Portland, Oregon 97201.

Even though it’s free, space is limited, so sign up early.

I’ll be posting more information about the camp as it’s available. You can also follow camp news on Twitter at @journopdx.

This is the closest to sending a chain letter I’ll ever get.

Last week, freelance writer Kerry Dexter included WordCount in a list of 15 blogs to explore. She was continuing an experiment started by another writer/blogger friend who included Dexter’s blog in her own list of 15 ‘Lovely Blogs, after that blog had been included in someone else’s list.

Now it’s my turn.

When it comes to blogs, I regularly read a mashup of subjects I write about like technology, HR, Internet security and business, and blogs about what’s happening in the media industry – as you can imagine there are more and more of those these days. I also read a handful of blogs on writing, blogging, marketing and social media that influence my own writing and blogging.

Since I started using Twitter, I probably read more posts on random blogs than posts on blogs I subscribe to – but that’s a subject for another day.

Without further ado, here are the 15 blogs I read almost every day:

Media industry

• Romenesko – Hands down the most informative blog for what’s happening in the newspaper and magazine business.
• NewspaperDeathWatch – Another strong chronicler of what’s happening in the newspaper business, written by newspaper industry and social media expert Paul Gillin.
• PBSMediaShift – With the tagline, “Your guide to the digital media revolution,” host Mark Glaser is turning this into a multi-sourced must-read for what’s happening in digital media.

Writing and freelancing

• The Urban Muse – Susan Johnston, aka The Urban Muse, is the freelance writer I wish I was when I was starting out – smart and accessible, not above sharing her frustrations, foibles and successes.
• The Social Writer - Motley Fool writer Tim Beyers uses his blog to explore how writers can use the latest social media tools in pursuit of freelance happiness.
• Seth’s Blog – An old-school online marketer, if it’s possible to call anyone associated with interactive marketing old school, Seth Godin’s been around since Web 1.0 and it shows. With the tip of his bald head peaking out at readers, Godin’s like a Buddha, spouting short daily aphorisms on sales and marketing. Freelancers are in the business of selling, whether we like to think of ourselves that way or not, so why not draw inspiration from a master.

Social media

• ProBlogger – Instructive but not preachy advice on blogging. Whatever blogging difficulty you’re encountering – building traffic, looking for topics, getting readers to comment, etc. – chances are Darren Rowse and crew have covered it, from multiple angles.
• Mashable – Do I read this to stay current on what’s happening in social networks for the paid writing I do, or do I read it for the tips to get more out my own social media use? Probably a little bit of both.
• TwiTips – Not an everyday read, but definitely the first place I turn when figuring out something new on Twitter. (Note: I’ve written a guest column here.)

Business and technology

• Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist – If you read me you know I have a train wreck kind of fascination with Trunk. Yes she’s wildly inappropriate at times, but also an incredibly compelling blogger who tackles issues other people wouldn’t dream of, like her post connecting abortion and careers, which to date has received 370 comments.
• YourHRGuy – What’s not to like about Lance Haun – he knows HR, he brings a Gen Y perspective to workplace matters, he writes well, he’s in Portland, and he’s into sports and making sports analogies about HR issues.
• TechCrunch – Love him or hate him, Michael Arrington’s group-edited blog is the CNN Headlines News for Silicon Valley.
• ReadWriteWeb – Another group-edited blog covering the tech biz. While it might not have TechCrunch’s sizzle, or bite, it’s become another go-to source for breaking industry news – and anything with so many writers based in Portland is OK in my book.

Just for kicks

• The Cohens in DK – If I’m being totally honest here, some blogs I read just for fun. One is my sister’s about life as an expat wife living in Copenhagen, which will end soon because her husband’s been recalled to the States for a new position. This is as good an example as any I’ve come across of excellent writing from an amateur writer/blogger, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my sister.
• My daughter’s blog from college, which she started so she wouldn’t have to email or even call home about her adventures or, God forbid, friend me on Facebook. Sorry, this one’s not meant for public consumption so I’m not including the link.

I’m no fan of chain letters, so I won’t ask anyone to pick up the mantle and blog about the 15 blogs they read most often. But if you’ve got a couple favorites, feel free to share them here.