BenSpark
Hi Jonathan thanks for agreeing to an interview. I’m excited to get started please, tell the readers about yourself.
Jonathan
I’m a senior software developer focused on using Microsoft technology to bring the best available solutions to my users. I’m the silent, think first, talk later type.
I’m 27 years old, single and I live in the Netherlands (yes, that’s that tiny European country where it always rains). My work is also my hobby, which makes for an interesting balancing act, sometimes.
BenSpark
I like that, the I’m silent, think first, talk later type. We need more people like that. I think I’m like that most of the time. When my friends are all talking I’ll take it all in and then boil down the conversation to the essentials or offer a witty quip. I like it. Your work is also your hobby, that is interesting why don’t you tell us about your blog where you showcase that work.
Jonathan
The great thing about the Developers 42 blog is that developers that use the latest in Microsoft technology can find a lot of information about things you don’t find in your average tutorial. All my articles are based on experience I get from my job and hobby projects. I also provide software that I build as a hobby for free, through my blog. You can download CodeEmbed4Web from my website, which is a great tool for other bloggers, that publish code on a regular basis.
BenSpark
That CodeEmbed4Web sounds useful. With all your work on coding and software development I’d think the last thing you’d want to do is to look at a computer in the off hours. So, why did you start blogging?
Jonathan
It started out as a place to write down my experiences, so I could later find them myself and share them with peers. After only a few articles I found out I wanted to try and make this into more of a success, so I started figuring out how to promote a technical blog. I’ve found that it’s not the same as with other blogs. Developers are a lot harder to convince to come and read your blog, but once they do, they are more loyal then others.
BenSpark
Why do you monetize your blog? What are some companies besides IZEA that you work with?
Jonathan
Monetizing my blog is not really a priority for me. It is always nice to make a buck, but I don’t really need to. Besides IZEA I also use Google AdSense. I started out with them because once you setup (which is easy) you don’t have to put in any effort.
BenSpark
Since you view monetization as something you just do but don’t really need to do what is your stance on Disclosure?
Jonathan
I think it is a must. If you would write a sponsored post and not tell your audience about it, then you don’t take them seriously, which is one of the most important things when interacting, in any way and any situation, with other people.
BenSpark
SocialSpark is one of the ways in which you monetize. Being a developer you’d probably found areas of improvement and I’ll ask about that later but for now what is your favorite feature of SocialSpark?
Jonathan
I think it’s the friends feature. The SocialSpark community surprised me with the attention one gets when joining SocialSpark. It makes you feel a lot more at home then any other site I’ve joined as part of my blogging live. I also do like the RealRank feature. It puts your performance as a blogger in perspective.
BenSpark
The friendly aspect to SocialSpark is awesome! I love going there and meeting new friends. I have to ask, in your capacity as a developer what should be improved on SocialSpark?
Jonathan
The only thing I can think of, that bugs me as a developer, is the fact that it doesn’t remember my credentials long enough. It only does for about an hour. I think it should be at least a full day before it asks me to log in again.
BenSpark
I never really noticed that before but yeah, as one who is on SocialSpark for at least 3+ hours each day meeting people and adding friends and doing opps I guess that logging in over and over can be tedious. I never thought of it before. So, back to monetization, what Advertisers do you want to see on SocialSpark?
Jonathan
I’d like to see some more software companies delivering tools for developers and wanting to use the community force to promote it.
BenSpark
What is the Ultimate Goal for a blogger, in your opinion?
Jonathan
I’d say it is to get positive feedback, in any way, from your readers. If your readers like it, all is great.
BenSpark
I think I might be able to guess what you are going to say for this question. Which one plugin would you suggest all bloggers to have?
Jonathan
Can’t avoid a shameless plug here 
. Every blogger publishing source code, should download CodeEmbed4Web.
BenSpark
No worries on shameless plugs I want to promote the things that crew members do and creating a plug in is pretty sweet! You do a lot of things and are pretty busy so I’m wondering what is the first thing you do when you fire up your browser?
Jonathan
I check my email. I think it’s very important to make sure you respond to any feedback from your blog in a timely fashion, so it’s the first thing I do. Then I check my Google Analytics stats.
BenSpark
Responding to feedback is a priority to me and answering e-mail is job 1 each morning. Let’s think big picture, big dreams here with this next question. If you could spend one year blogging about a particular thing what would it be and why? How would you keep it fresh?
Jonathan
It would probably be about cars, because I would be driving a lot of different cars and I would write reviews about them. To keep it fresh, I would finally give a realistic opinion about the cars. I haven’t found any car magazine or show that is not biased either because of the way they are funded, or by having completely arbitrary standards.
BenSpark
That sounds awesome, driving all those cars, my dream is to do something like that with kayaks, try out different kayaks for a week at a time and review them, thoroughly. That would be so fun. I think I could create some best blog posts with that. What is your best blog post ever?
Jonathan
I looked up the stats and I found that this article has had the most visitors: Lookup Combobox in Silverlight 2. It describes how to implement a lookup combobox in a datagrid in Silverlight 2 and it still get’s visitors almost every day.
If you’re talking impact, then this article: Adventures while building a Silverlight Enterprise application part #4. It took the most hits in a single day. It discusses localization for a datagrid in Silverlight 2, which I guess, was a very popular topic at the time, but has dropped in the rankings since then.
BenSpark
Writing useful content is definitely the way to gain eyeballs, one of my reviews of the GiSTEQ Phototrackr gets hits every day and occasionally people even buy one through my blog. Very easy passive income. It is odd how people find me. What are some odd keywords people use to find your blog?
Jonathan
How about 43 people using exactly the same keyword: system.windows.markup.xamlparseexception occurred message=”ag_e_parser_bad_type ”
I was also stunned to find out some people visited me while looking for Nina Sasaki (who appears to be a jazz singer).
BenSpark
It is weird how people find you and what they do on your blog. I had someone buy SARS masks through my Amazon Affiliates once. I’ve never talked about SARS. Outside of blogging what are your other interests?
Jonathan
I have a very wide range of interests, but most of my time goes to music and cars / motorsports.
BenSpark
What is amazing about you?
Jonathan
I guess being both technically very talented (if I say so myself) and still being able to communicate on a human level with non-technical people makes for a good, but rare combination.
BenSpark
Ipod or other music player?
Jonathan
I’d have to say other. I personally use a media center connected to a JVC audio set, to listen to most of my music. On other occasions I use a laptop.
BenSpark
I’ve got to stop asking this question because no one does it. But I’ll ask again, do you play Facebook games?
Jonathan
Facebook??
BenSpark
What is the most motivational advice you can give other bloggers?
Jonathan
If you’re not getting any hits, this is probably not because of your content, as a lot of bloggers would like to make you believe. It’s probably about promoting and getting people in. Don’t be shy. Tell people you have a blog and where they can find it. Put it in your email signature, forum signatures, etc.. No one can tell you your content is no good until after you’ve had a considerable amount of hits.
BenSpark
Good advice, go out and promote, get feedback and improve content. You probably know good content when you see it so I’ll ask What would you say are your favorite blogs?
Jonathan
My number one favorite blog for professional reasons is SilverlightCream: The author, Dave Campbell, collects the latest and greatest when it comes to silverlight development. He also publishes my blog articles.
Something a bit more off topic for me is @vanelsas. He writes about the impact of new media and social networking: http://vanelsas.wordpress.com/
BenSpark
Do you listen to any podcasts do you have some favorites?
Jonathan
I used to spend a lot of time driving to customers, when I was still a consultant. I used to listen to podcasts from software engineering radio . The audio quality is not always great, and their interviews aren’t always so professional, but the content is usually very interesting.
Now I spend about four minutes to get to work, so I don’t listen to it anymore.
BenSpark
How does someone connect with you online?
Jonathan
Easiest way is trough linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jvdveen
If you need faster response: jvandeveen at gmail.com
BenSpark
I want to thank you Jonathan for taking the time to talk with me and answer these crew interview questions. I hope that everyone reading this takes a moment to visit the Developers 42 blog and say hi to Jonathan.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Always enjoy testing out your new plugins and reading your blog Jonathan