10 Questions with Wil of Spot Cool Stuff

1. Describe your blog in five sentences or less.
How about one phrase or less:  Destinations, gadgets, music, movies, websites and high design items with a WOW factor.

2. Link us to one post from your blog that best defines who you are.
Only one? My most recent post is still swirling in my mind. So, at this moment, I have to point you to Eat Breakfast With A Giraffe.  Besides the fact that I hope this post makes people go WOW, my intent was to make this place seem accessible. Almost anyone with the means can go experience it for themselves, you don’t need to be any great adventurer. I mean, how great is it that we live on a planet where there’s a Giraffe Manor?

3. What sets you apart from other bloggers?
Our WOW factor. And that we bring that sensibility (or try to) to all five categories we write about: travel, tech, media, websites, and design.

4. When and how did you first discover blogging?
At the same time bloggers first discovered blogging, back in the late 90s or early 2000s when I was working for the Discovery Channel Online.

5. What is your biggest pet peeve related to blogging or the internet?
Blogs that have more ads than useful content. I saw a blog yesterday (I wish I could remember the URL) that was literally dozens of adsense ads surrounding a blog post that was, wait for it, one sentence long.

6. Name one plugin, blogging widget, or service that you can’t live without.
Especially on the travel portion of Spot Cool Stuff I couldn’t live without my Folding Categories plugin; I have so many categories it would really be impossible otherwise.  The plugin I’m starting to like more and more is CommentLuv. I started using it in my Travel And Websites areas but might be expanding that to the others.

7. If you could choose anyone, living or dead, to write a guest post for your blog, who would it be and why?
How can you not go for some one dead if that option is out there?  Lots of names come to mind but in the end I’d have to say Leonardo da Vinci.  I’m not sure there’s ever been a person who has more sought out life’s WOW factors.

8. How has blogging made you a better person?
Interesting that you are assuming that it has. Writing, researching and making contact with others has certainly enriched my life. But made me a better person?  I’m not sure.

9. What are your tips for becoming a better blogger?
A friend of mine recently launched a blog and asked me to take a look. Her blog posts were written in light red text placed upon a medium-red background.  Naturally, I told her that her readers might find her color choice difficult to read and headache-inducing. Her reply: “But I like red!”  So my advice is this: Think about your blog from your reader’s point of view.  How does what you are writing appear to them? What’s THEIR experience on your blog and how can you make that better? What do they want to know?  On almost every blog I’ve been to (mine as well, in some ways) the blogger is far too self-centric.

10. Name one great blog that you read on a regular basis. What makes it unique?
Breed ‘Em And Weep – Excellent writing, combined with a delicious sense of humor and profound outlook on life.

Categories: Art & Music, Technology, Ten Questions, Travel & Culture