I’ve been getting more and more e-mail from people I don’t know asking for things.

But, I just have to share this one with you. It’s from someone I’ve never heard of who wants to JV or joint-venture with me, translation, get access to you, my amazing family of readers:

Hello Jonathan Fields,

I came across your site while browsing the articles at [site I've never heard of].com. You’ve got a terrific website and I especially like your article “[article I never wrote]”

Seriously, I can’t believe I missed this…

The blogosphere has been engaged in a heated debate for months now about whether it’s better to niche blog or spread your topics wide. I published a round-up post on niche versus broad-scope blogging. And I’ve read a number of other articles on it recently. Which is why I can’t believe I missed the answer.

It’s been sitting in front of my face the entire time.

After all the discussions, all the blog posts, all the banter, tweets, IMs and e-mails, a single irrefutable fact led me to conclude…

Here it is, the keys to the blog-growth castle…

It’s not uber-networking, commenting on every high-traffic blog you can find, sucking up to big bloggers to get links, befriending social-medialites, installing plug-ins to get people to subscribe or thank them once they do or building your profile and family of friends.

Do those things help? Yes, but…

Only if you do one much more important thing really, really well. What’s that one thing?

Be insane.

• Insanely interesting
• Insanely entertaining
• Insanely informative
• Insanely useful
• Insanely provocative
• Insanely kind/compassionate

I literally passed out when the news came my way…

Since joining the blogging community, I’ve become privy to a growing feed of scandalous information about major players in the blogging arena. And, until now, I’ve kept my mouth shut, but this latest round of news is just too good to keep to myself.

So here goes…

Time for another Friday afternoon best-of-the-web, where I filter out a bazillion things to bring you the coolest stuff I read and seen online this week. Enjoy…

• Family Guy Matrix Trailer - Epic, watch it and start your weekend with a smile
• Why leisure matters in a busy world - Interesting article about the importance of taking time off
• Twister bedsheets - No need for explanation here
• Become an expert with the power of deliberate practice - Steve Rubel applies greatness theory to the process of becoming an expert authority. Interesting read, especially for bloggers

I read. A lot!

Not just blogs. Books, magazines, cartoons, newsletters, I devour them. It’s the maven in me. And, I’ve shared a few reviews here, but I figure, it’s time to start doing it a bit more regularly. So, this is the first of my every other Wednesday drive-by book-review series (with a little effort, I might even be able to keep it going past today).

Why drive-by?

Because, I’m busy, you’re busy, so rather than listing out the table of contents and picking apart everything that was said, my purpose is more to highlight:

So, I’m hanging out with William Shatner at the Jet Blue terminal on Friday…

Well, actually, I am watching him in a mildly-creepy voyueristic kind of way as he saunters up to check in for his flight to Burbank.

My first thought is, “damn, his piece looks good.”

I’m losing my hair fast, so I am seriously tempted to ask where he bought his, but, then I remember…this is NY, we don’t do stuff like that. We’re just that cool.

It wasn’t so long ago…

You wanted to talk to someone down the hall, so, rather than tweeting, IMing or e-mailing, you got up off your butt, walked to their office and, stay with me, you actually stood in front of them and had a conversation. A real live, eyeball to eyeball, face to face, mannerism-twitching, body-language-revealing conversation.

God bless technology…

It’s made it so that we don’t have to move more than a mouse-click to share our message. All this has been great for productivity (not too great for stress and expectations) and allowed us to talk to people all over the world all day and night, even when they’re just down the hall.

Picture this…

You’re walking down the street and the shop in the corner has a big glowing sign that says, “Marketing geniuses. We can pack any business with customers, leverage cutting-edge technology, make the world talk about you and get customers to run screaming to hand over their life-savings.”

Wow, nice promise. Global domination in a day.

Then, you peer in the window and see a dimly lit office, beat up furniture, a single person behind a desk, an IBM 386 on the desktop, a rotary phone, dust all over the place and the guy behind the desk kicked back reading a newspaper, drinking coffee and having a leisurely lunch at 2pm.