Comments on: LeftLane News – Blog Case Study

By: Used Corvette

Used Corvette — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:39:02 +0000

I bookmarked your blog, thanks for sharing this very interesting article

By: The Myth We Need to Dispel » AlleNation

The Myth We Need to Dispel » AlleNation — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:46:43 +0000

[...] LeftLane News: I first heard about leftlane two years ago, when it was featured as a case study at Problogger, today it’s founder built a successful blog network. Here’s an excerpt from the article at Problogger: “the site just turned six months and the traffic growth has been nearly exponential. There have been a few days where I’ve even had more traffic than my competitors from Weblogs Inc or Gawker. And I’m a relatively independent blogger (not part of a blog network), so this should be inspiration to anyone looking to take on the giants.” [...]

By: Vincent

Vincent — Thu, 18 May 2006 15:37:18 +0000

C’mon guys, this dude is ripping content from other more quality blogs and hides behind the way traditional media is working. Sorry but I can’t understand why LLN is stated in a blog case study, in my opinion this is not the way a good blog should be.

Oh, and I really like this one: “I cite all publications by name. I link if it adds value.” Thats good!

By: Evelyn

Evelyn — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 15:12:13 +0000

Cool tips and guides. Really admire the graph chart. Way up the mountain. Been reading alot and learning alot from problogger.net.

Thanks for sharing the information.

By: PhiMix

PhiMix — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 06:39:41 +0000

Thanks for your help with finding a watermarking program.

I think the best program yet is this C# example (compiled demo available):
http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/Watermark_Creator.asp

It’s exactely what I was looking for – and if I don’t like the standard functionality, I might even be able to customize it since my CV says I’m pretending to be a C# programmer :)

By: DaEMoN

DaEMoN — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 18:18:15 +0000

Leftlane: Yes, I still, in fact, get new visitors from that comment! I’ll write a post on my other site with some considerations about traffic from commenting on popular blogs, once (if ever) traffic from it diminishes!

PhiMix: I have my watermarking totally automated in Photoshop. You can do it by using the Action panel (on the right, the tab close to “History”). There you can record all the actions you perform in creating/applying your watermark and have several hundred pics done in a matter of minutes. Send me an e-mail through my site, if you need a more in-depth explaination: I don’t want to hog the comments. :)

By: Guitar Daily

Guitar Daily — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 14:14:17 +0000

You make a good point of having audio/video content. I am thinking about doing some experiments with this as soon as i have some time. My blog is only one and a half months old, and for some of the topics i’m planning for the future, audio would be very nice. This may be exactly the material that would attract visitors to the website – i’m thinking of video sequences with the website address in a corner, or something similar.

By: Leftlane News

Leftlane News — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 13:25:02 +0000

DaEMoN: there was a lot of traffic to that post, but daily traffic to the site is still around enough to maintain close to the level of traffic seen last month, and that’s not counting the effect the NY Auto Show may have. :)

By: Paul Mernon

Paul Mernon — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 13:07:49 +0000

PhiMix:

Check ImageMagick (http://www.imagemagick.org/index.php), a free image manipulation suite. It comes with a handful of command-line tools that can be used to automate the process (look for ‘composite’ tool). I’ve used ImageMagick for different purposes but was happy with its capabilities. It is cross-platform so you can install and use it on Unix/Windows/MacOS.

I’ve just checked and found that googling for ‘imagemagick watermark’ and ‘imagemagick watermark tutorial’ brings up a lot examples of how to automate watermarking.

By: PhiMix

PhiMix — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 12:28:29 +0000

Thanks for the idea, but I was more thinking about some “automatic” batch tool.

What I want is to supply a directory of images and then ask this unknown program to add a watermark in the same location on all the images.

By: A.H

A.H — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 12:19:50 +0000

PhiMix: you can edit the text transparency with Photoshop (paid) or GIMP (free) and rotate it with the desired angle, and you’ll have a nice watermark.

Example of a one i just made:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v484/mrheat/transample.jpg

You have total freedom with the rotation and transparency, so you can make a lot of watermark models.

A.H

By: PhiMix

PhiMix — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 11:26:02 +0000

Congratulations with your growth, it’s very impressive.

What program do you use to create watermarks like this one:
http://www.leftlanenews.com/wp-images/media/jan6ed_1.jpg

I have downloaded a few trials, but they all seem quite complicated.

Thanks, PhiMix

By: Salman

Salman — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 10:19:49 +0000

That’s an impressive growth chart, looks like Google released the hounds on your site around December!

By: DaEMoN

DaEMoN — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 09:39:15 +0000

Oh and let me add one thing:
The name of that blog is great: I had it in my feed reader immediately after I saw it.
LeftLane News: it’s simple, yet clever and effective. (although in some countries, as stated by the owner, the fast lane is the right one :) )

By: DaEMoN

DaEMoN — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 09:12:53 +0000

What is funny about the Un-pimp my ride post, is that I had sent 2-3 informative comments stating who the actor was..
and I got around 100-120 visits from those comments alone to my site http://www.ferrariblog.net.
I guess that pretty much says it all in terms of traffic HE may have had for that post :)
Great work, anyway. LeftLane News is an astonishingly good blog (by many means, the best in the automotive field)!

By: Andy Merrett

Andy Merrett — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 07:12:27 +0000

I know it’s been said already but that is tremendous growth. Very well done! I wish I could achieve that – I am seeing month-on-month growth on several sites but it doesn’t come close to your figures.

By: Marc James

Marc James — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 03:41:04 +0000

Leftlane News,

Could you please provide an RSS feed with the full post? Autoblog does this, which is why I am subscribe. I don’t want just headlines. If you did this, I and many others would switch immediately.

Also, it took me a while to find your RSS feed. It wasn’t automatically identified with my browser, which is a no-no for the site, and there were no RSS icons which people are accustomed to looking for.

I love the site, though. Autoblog is too US-centric in car coverage. I am a Euro freak with cars and the last thing I want to read about is GM labor issues and other domestic crap. Thanks!

By: Paul -V-

Paul -V- — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 03:17:13 +0000

Is it okay to say I’m jealous?

‘Cause I am.

*sigh*

I will double my efforts.

By: Leftlane News

Leftlane News — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 01:20:19 +0000

khurrum: thanks, the design is meant to be a factor in the blog’s feel to the reader. we made that a big focus. a few people dont like it, but most love it.

Trollhattan Saab: You were in NYT? That’s great! As I recall, one large site neglected to cite you, then they updated to reflect the proper source. I assume NYT saw that article, and then cited you as well. Is that what happened?

As for the hybrid release, are you talking about the convertible? If so, I really forget where that came from at this moment. Next time you are in a situation like that, email me, I could probably help. I don’t share with the competition for obvious reasons, but for brand-specific sites I will gladly help out. :)

By: Blog Network Watch

Blog Network Watch — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 00:58:33 +0000

Left Lane News Case Study

Problogger takes a look at Leftlane News and how they can improve:On September 26th, 2005, I started a new weblog called Leftlane News. It’s a blog all about cars and the automotive industry. It targets car enthusiasts, thus the name…