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The best way to bring back blogs is to start with your own. It looks like this is the author's fourth post and s/he hit a home run with the top post on HN. But
by aazaa 6y ago
The best way to bring back blogs is to start with your own. It looks like this is the author's fourth post and s/he hit a home run with the top post on HN.
But that's rarely how things work.
The thing few people tell you when you start blogging is how futile it will seem - for a long, long time. You'll start by posting something you put a lot of work into. You'll publish, thinking of all the comments and emails you'll get.
Then, nothing. You'll check the analytics. Abysmal. Nobody is reading!
You may write a few more posts, but it's always the same story. A lot of work goes in, but not much comes out.
And this is the point at which most bloggers stop. After all, how can you justify more time spent on something that doesn't pay back?
The problem is that with a blog you need to think in terms of years. You have to write regularly over the course of years before you'll get any kind of reliable following.
In the meantime, you'll notice how blogging regularly changes you. You'll notice patterns you never noticed before, especially if you stick to a particular "beat." You'll get better at choosing topics. You'll figure out ways to write faster. You'll get better at pushing through mental fog and procrastination that keeps so many others from writing.
You may also discover that you really, really hate writing. Nothing wrong with that, but understand that many people also dislike writing anything longer than a tweet. And that's why good blogs are kind of scarce. And therein lies the opportunity.
- mawise 6y agoThose blogs from the time before were written for the purpose of writing, not for the purpose of getting lots of viewership. The blogs the author misses aren't written to make money off of ad traffic, they were just written to put down ideas. Today that need is filled with Facebook/Twitter/... and even there with the currency of likes/comments those motivations get twisted. Some of the internet has also shifted to a privacy centric attitude. The whole world is a big place to share intimate stories which will be indexed and used against you in job interviews or by oppressive governments. I still think there's value in private blogging, writing just to keep your friends and family informed. Blogging doesn't always have to be sharing with the whole world. I wish there were more platforms to make this easy to do.
- pmlnr 6y ago> The blogs the author misses aren't written to make money off of ad traffic, they were just written to put down ideas. This is what I've been pointing out for years as the lost core of the internet.
- freehunter 6y agoIt seems like this is a cultural shift in society as well. There are no more hobbies, everything is a side hustle and if you can’t turn a profit from it, it’s not worth doing. I’m not an economist or sociologist so I can’t Even pretend to understand why this is, but it’s a trend I’ve noticed over the past few years.
- renewiltord 6y agoNot my experience at all. The mods plus fanmade expansions community is bigger than ever. And so is open source. Way more stuff is free now than ever before.
- neutronicus 6y agoOpen source has a huge "personal brand-building" aspect to it
- freehunter 6y agoIt's not about giving things away for free, it's about doing things you like to do just for your own satisfaction. While there is a lot of that in the mods and open source space, there's also a lot of resume building, portfolio projects, etc. There's an insane amount of pressure to always be "shipping to production" no matter if your hobby is crocheting, gardening, writing code, blogging, building robots, playing music, painting, etc. Patreon, Etsy, OnlyFans, Kickstarter, and even Github (just to scratch the surface) all serve to put pressure on creators to turn their hobbies into second jobs.
- renewiltord 6y ago
- jotm 6y agoBlogs haven't gone anywhere, now they're just "posts" on major platforms. That's what people chose, because it's easier. They gave up content rights and many, many possibilities for the ease of posting and the near instant views and feedback.
- ALittleLight 6y agoI was thinking about this the other day - trying to come up with an idea for a way to aggregate or recommend blogs to people based on what they'd previously enjoyed or the topics they were interested in. It took me several minutes to realize I was mentally describing Medium to myself. Still, something doesn't feel quite right about Medium to me.
- D13Fd 6y agoI missed the Medium boat and just looked into it for the first time maybe 6 months ago. From a reader’s perspective, the content just seems repetitive and traffic-driven. There is a certain sensationalist slant that must drive views, and the articles rapidly started to feel samey. I’m still subscribed to it but I doubt I’ll renew.
- sturza 6y agoCan we talk privately about this?
- ALittleLight 6y agoTalk privately about my thoughts on blog sharing and medium? Sure - provide an email address and I'll send you a "Hello".
- ghaff 6y agoIt's not just the "major platforms." I have a blog which I've maintained for a long time and continue to publish on. But for a lot of the material I write on a day to day basis, I can publish at online pubs/sites where I have editorial support, an established audience, and promotional machinery. I'm not limited--I can always publish by myself--but for many of the things I write about I might as well choose an existing publication.
- polishdude20 6y agoI often notice when I start writing on a particular topic, I learn more about my thoughts and opinions of it and realize my thoughts are wrong or not really novel. Halfway in I give up since I feel like, "oh, this actually isn't really adding anything new to the conversation". Then I leave with a new humbleness about my beliefs but also a sense of "when am I actually going to know enough to warrant writing about it?".
- tapia 6y agoThat happens to me too. You really thing you have something interesting to tell, and then bam, just a silly thought... good that I realized that before publishing it.
- madacoo 6y agoI'm curious what your silly thoughts are. How do you know that I will share your judgement of what a silly thought is? What is a silly thought to you after writing something down might be of interest to a random internet user. Is it not presumptive to assume that everyone else will share your judgement?
- polishdude20 6y agoThat's a good point. I sometimes get a feeling that only an idiot would think my thoughts were good and most people are not idiots so whatever I write about won't be useful.
- karatestomp 6y agoThis is me, but for writing and also for business ideas.
- wayoutthere 6y agoI look at it as a writing exercise along the lines of "you remember 60% of what you hear and 90% of what you had to research and write". Yeah, your article probably isn't going to catch fire and open a bunch of eyes. But the exercise of writing it almost certainly improved your understanding of the problem space, so if it ends up being useful to someone or gets you some small amount of clout that's a bonus.
- mooreds 6y ago> It looks like this is the author's fourth post and s/he hit a home run with the top post on HN. > But that's rarely how things work. Totally agree. I've written a fair bit about blogging, but when I started a new blog aimed at helping new developers, for the first month I wrote more posts than I had visitors (!): https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2019/10/14/how-to-start-blogging/ https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2019/10/14/how-to-start-b... I think that six months is enough time to commit. At the end of that period you'll either have the bug and want to keep blogging or know the format is not for you.
- dgudkov 6y agoThere is a good advice for writers (bloggers are essentially writers) - write only if you can't NOT write. If you write because you can't not write, then you don't care about the number of readers.
- bufordtwain 6y agoReminds me of this piece by Charles Bukowski: https://poets.org/poem/so-you-want-be-writer https://poets.org/poem/so-you-want-be-writer
- xwdv 6y agoI feel that rather than blogging, more people should write comments. I’ve never written one blog article, but I’ve written a novel worth of comments over the years. A comment IMO is more pure and true, and is created out of a strong desire to say something, rather than for some other extrinsic motivation. My problem with blogging is that I can’t just write in a vacuum, I must always write in response to something and when I have something worth responding too I can write more usefully.
- slightwinder 6y agoYou can just blog a comment. Read something that moves your mind longer than the first barfed out comment? Blog it. Write down your thought process, discuss with yourself, do something thoughtful witout the stress of a public discussion.
- cglong 6y agoThis is essentially what Daring Fireball [1] is, and it's one of the biggest blogs out there. [1]: https://daringfireball.net/ https://daringfireball.net/
- kyuudou 6y agoOne reason I still visit jwz's blog[0]. Comments are usually thought-provoking and creative and sometimes even Brendan Eich shows up. [0]https://www.jwz.org/blog/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/
- saagarjha 6y agoAs someone who writes a lot of comments but also now blogs a bit: blog posts for me are just long, thought out comments; often they’re an amalgamation of comments I might have left, or little bits on a topic that I keep around but have never had a place to write as a comment so I put them all together into one big one and polish it.
- mraudiobook_com 6y agoI've been blogging book reviews for years to 100 people
- zwaps 6y agoI once wrote up something that interested me at the moment and figured I'll post it on medium so people get to actually read it. To my surprise, medium doesn't let you publish (write yes, not publish) anything, unless you jump through several obscure loops like "engaging with the platform for a while". My article wasn't particularly important, so I am not too heartbroken about it. But what this tells me is that there seems to be a lot of demand for publishing posts of different nature.
- redisman 6y agoI honestly got a lot more traffic on my blogs than I thought. Mostly from Google. Writing clear answers to things I’ve ran into during my daily work seems to work pretty well
- cyberferret 6y agoI've been blogging on and off for the past few years now (not going to publish the link here in case it is seen as self promotion). Mainly as a way of leaving my life story and thoughts for my family to have something to remember my life when I am no longer around (My dad had some incredible life stories, and I wish we had recorded them in some form before he passed). I think what is missing now is the rich set of tools around the ecosystem. Posterous was a great service to let you email your thoughts directly to a blog post. I am amazed there was no other competitor that sprung up when they got bought out and shut down by Twitter nearly a decade ago. I really miss Google Reader, which was where I used to keep a curated list of the top blogs I used to read regularly. Even now, some mornings I wish I could just open my Google Reader home page and check out the latest updates from some of my favourite bloggers.
- sien 6y agoInoreader is better than Google Reader was. You might want to check it out. https://www.inoreader.com/ https://www.inoreader.com/
- zimmund 6y agoGoogle Reader was free. I can't afford 50 usd/yr just to read RSS feeds (yes, there's a free plan, but it's limited and at that point I'd rather stick with RSSOwl or similar -free- tools).
- sien 6y agoFair enough. I had the free plan for ages and really only changed to the paid one so they would get something after I'd used it for years. Edit : Their free tier has 150 RSS subs allowed. So it's pretty reasonably. I have the middle tier for $US 20 a year that sets that to 500 subs. Also, I have no interest in the company financially, just very pleased that there is a better than Google Reader replacement.
- marban 6y agoPosterous: I just launched https://flipso.com https://flipso.com — Does more or less the same.
- m463 6y agoThe way to immortality is to write.
- philistine 6y agoYES! I will forever be a third-rate Game Boy enthusiast writer. FOREVER !
- lowwave 6y ago> It looks like this is the author's fourth post and s/he hit a home run with the top post on HN. Think this is NOT his fourth post. It may be a new front end: Check out the other blogs: http://tttthis.coolstuffinterestingstuffnews.com http://tttthis.coolstuffinterestingstuffnews.com
- lethologica 6y agoWhat is this bizarre URL? Their site is http://tttthis.com http://tttthis.com I remember it because I sometimes try to find it. I quite liked a post of theirs called "Remember websites" or something to that effect.
- stevehb 6y agoMight be this one: http://tttthis.com/rememberwebsites.php/ http://tttthis.com/rememberwebsites.php/
- meerita 6y agoExactly. As a 20 years blogger, I would say I wish people posted more blog posts than shitty tuits. But Twitter format made possible distribute the message better than the blogs. Back then, we used RSS aggregators and other things, nowadays its kinda rare. I still visit blogs and i still post on my own blog, though i do it everytime i need to do a longer explanation post.
- stevenicr 6y agoI have some blogs that played the long game, and I must say the years thing is a fantasy for most that will likely not be realized. Sure it's fine to do like art that could get popular after you die, or you could be found as an unknown amazing author on day.. However things with the publishing and PR industry are such that I think it would be best to get some eyeballs and feedback before you spend years writing hoping to get discovered, much like launching a product or service too late after spending too much time in pre-production. Sadly I think it's multiple changes in google that killed blogs over the years and I don't see blogs coming back into the top search results (or blog link rolls not being penalties that scare people into never using them) and changing things. I love blogs, and blogging - but I must admit that more success is found by tweeting or even making a meme that is shared. If you can't hope for google to give you results and never know if fbook is going to block your blog, then I don't suggest people put eggs in that basket - unless there is another side reason for doing so, like your posts are auto-added to instagram or something somehow.
- Falkon1313 6y agoMaybe if you're only doing it for fame and fortune and PR and success. But trying to do that without actually having anything interesting to get famous and successful about was always just a con-man's game. Real blogging is about sharing your thoughts and ideas on whatever niche topic interests you with people who have the same interests, and the conversations that arise out of that. Like the friendships that form from participating in BBSes and forums over the years, the value is in the fun you have and the interesting discussions and bouncing ideas off others' viewpoints. It doesn't need to be a business to be fulfilling.
- hachibu 6y agoThanks for the wonderfully insightful comment. I need to save this so I can periodically look at it for motivation!
- Chathamization 6y agoThe publish or perish nature of blogs is one of the many reasons why I feel they're generally inferior to the personal web pages that were popular during the early web. It seems that there has been a general trend towards a constant churning of output in order to keep up the dopamine hits for users. The quality of a lot of online content reflects this.
- mr_spothawk 6y ago> It seems that there has been a general trend towards a constant churning of output in order to keep up the dopamine hits for users. my first thought when reading this was "yeah, that's because users don't know how to RSS". it's not that i know how to RSS that well, but i do have friends who use RSS in the style of masters. my favorite strategy that i have heard of, and what i will try to replicate in a few months, is: rss subscription >> local mail service >> inbound mail folders filled with articles from my RSS feed. i've been practicing my own ability to use "the computer" in a way that makes me feel like a master... and we'll see if i ever get there. surely though, we are all missing out on the oldschool internet that was swallowed by the walled gardens. but it seems that we're headed for a renaissance
- cousin_it 6y agoYeah. The antithesis of the blog is the evergreen page, where you collect and systematize information about one thing you're interested in, and keep improving it over the years. A great example is Robin Whittle's page about pink noise algorithms: http://www.firstpr.com.au/dsp/pink-noise/ http://www.firstpr.com.au/dsp/pink-noise/ It covers the topic from more angles than any single blogpost. Then at some point your page can become a collection of pages, like Bill Beaty's electricity stuff: http://amasci.com/miscon/whatis.html http://amasci.com/miscon/whatis.html I think these are some of the most valuable things on the internet.
- sandspar 6y agoI love these types of pages. I know nothing about programming. Can you (or anyone reading this) suggest how I can go about making one? What's the bare minimum I'd need to learn to have essentially a single or a few pages with plain text, links, and photos on it, like the ones you posted? What terms should I search for to learn how to do this?
- silexia 6y agoI have run my blog on joelx.com for 14 years and have thousands of posts. Very few people actually read them, but it's nice to have a history my kids could one day read.
- logicprog 6y agoI've been steadily plugging away at a semi-regular schedule (I post when I hit a milestone, but that can vary in time itself) on my writing blog. I post all my short stories there, as well as progress on the novel I'm writing. I know no one here really cares about non-tech stuff (I'm a tech guy, but I've sort of gotten more interested in philosophy and writing lately — all I used to care about was tech, so I get it), but shameless plug: https://indifferentuniverse.christopherdumas.org/?m=1 https://indifferentuniverse.christopherdumas.org/?m=1. I've only been doing it for less than a year, so I haven't reached the stuff you're talking about. I haven't even really branched out into talking about general topics yet, but I plan to soon. I'm just slowly feeling my way around, seeing what I can do and what I have time for and whatever. I don't get (m)any views that aren't myself yet though, lol.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago> Then, nothing. You'll check the analytics. Abysmal. Nobody is reading! Open source software development can be like this as well. Most of my projects ended up being useful to me alone. I started some just to see if some fundamental idea was possible: lost all motivation to actually finish the project once I proved to myself that it was. I contributed some features to an existing project and they got a lot more attention. Interacting with fellow developers and users is a great experience. Made me care a lot more about the end result and whether it got merged. Perhaps a personal wiki would be better than a blog. As long as the articles are useful to their writers, they should have enough motivation to keep writing.
- robot 6y agothis is true, though with the assumption of blogging as it is in today's world where it is lonely and only a search engine can find you. if blogging was done inside a supportive community and network it could be less lonely and you could get frequent feedback and interactions. If I was to make an analogy using your perspective on blogging with facebook or instagram - you post about yourself or post personal photos for a long time. It is futile, for a long long time, nobody sees your content... you post photos for years, and you realize it changes you. You will notice patterns, you will get better at posting photos ... I am exaggerating to make a point and it is this, you may find yourself needing to perfect your content strategy(blog, photos or facebook-style posts) for years and the main reason it doesn't pay back is there is no network or community anymore. You shouldn't have to be a pro to get noticed. People tried decentralized networks and that didn't work so well, because one - you need modern blogging software (newsfeed, real time comments, spam moderation, good recommendation algorithms) and it has to be managed by a centralized authority that offers a great user experience. Today, closest thing to this is facebook and twitter (and instagram). All in all you must have these for a great blogging experience: first, good software and central authority, then network. It must be focused on serving authentic bloggers, and it must be backed by a commercial solution. That in turn means, a paid service, whose customers are bloggers. That means, how badly do you want an amazing blogging experience, where you blog with great writing tools, search, discover, and interact with others (and probably in today's world, be able to hop on a video chat with your viewers and share that in comments). Yes, so how much do you desire to have it, would you pay $5/month? $30/month? $100/month? It comes down to this. If there was monetary backing, this problem could be solved with a 'solution'. Chances are that not enough many people want it, and people are content with free posting on instagram, twitter, or facebook, and happy to live with ads. If this was a high demand service, chances are that it would have already been built, or existing ones would already be prospering (tumblr didn't make money and got acquired, blogger shut down, medium serving writers looking to make money, recreational blogging is not their target and so on). So is this a real problem to solve or not? Maybe people don't know they want it and aren't organized enough to support it, - if you built an amazing experience maybe lots of bloggers will pay for it, then it will become another, facebook where the network is funded by its users.
- tdeck 6y ago
- henrik_w 6y agoI agree with a lot of this. Writing for yourself is the best advice: if you write about things that interest you, maybe people with similar interests will read your blog. Also, your own understanding of the subjects you write about will grow. I've been blogging for eight years now, and it has been very rewarding. It's great to get readers, and it is great to end up on the front page of Hacker News. But it is also really good to have a blog to point people to when you look for a job. One thing that is still true is how much work it is to write even a short blog post. It still takes me hours of concentrated work. But I am still doing it, becuase the value outweighs the cost. More on my blogging here: https://henrikwarne.com/2017/11/26/6-years-of-thoughts-on-programming/ https://henrikwarne.com/2017/11/26/6-years-of-thoughts-on-pr...
- mikro2nd 6y ago> You'll check the analytics. Abysmal. Nobody is reading! And that, right there, is the best reason to remove all analytics from your blog/website[1]. At the risk of being held guilty of self-promotion, I wrote a little blog post about just this a couple of weeks ago: https://one.mikro2nd.net/2020/05/why-no-web-analytics-are-to-be-found-here/ https://one.mikro2nd.net/2020/05/why-no-web-analytics-are-to... (Thing is, if anybody here does go and read it, I won't even know.) At the root of the unease is the question, "Why are you blogging?" If it's something you do for yourself, then analytics -- specifically: who is reading which posts -- is a distraction, and sure to lead you astray into the thickets and quagmire of writing mere clickbait. If you're writing to establish "thought leadership" in some sphere, then display leadership, not followership (i.e. chasing the analytics.) It's a strange and uncomfortable feeling at first (perhaps always!) but at least you'll always know who you're writing for (yourself). If you're writing for some "payback" then I'd suggest that submitting articles to magazines is a better path/platform than blogging. Personally I am more interested in inciting thought and discussion through my blog, so mere visitor statistics are of little interest. What would validate what I do there would be someone who reaches out to talk about something I've written. That's the real payback. [1] Nor any trackers of any sort.
- lufte 6y agoI started my own blog last month and I am following this advice 100%. I'm not using analytics or trackers of any sort, not only for believing they create they same delusion you mention in your post, but also because I try to block all types of trackers when visiting other sites. Why would I use the very thing I'm trying so hard to avoid when surfing the web? It's basically a matter of respect to the reader. So I designed my site following the values I consider so important for websites in general: no trackers, no mandatory javascript, no obstacles between the user and the content.
- mikro2nd 6y agoYour reason -- respect for your readers, treating them as you wish to be treated yourself -- is the exact reason I started down this road. It took me a while to realise that there was this other, more subtle, benefit, too. +1 on joining in. Perhaps we can turn it into a movement. ;)
- cameronbrown 6y agoLmao.. Literally the only time I've gotten a flood of emails was from when I described my experience applying to a FAANG company. Quite sad actually, as I'd been shouting into the void about far more interesting things for years.
- saagarjha 6y agoYou really don’t get to pick, sadly.
- anticsapp 6y agoI disagree, I had 100,000 uniques on my third blog post. Of course, there was less Internet in 2005.
- epigramx 6y agoThat is true even for entertainment videos on Youtube. Some people have the delusion it's effortless. PewDiePie said he was for at least 2 years posting videos for ~100 followers and a regular ~1mil views/video youtuber often spends ~12 hours for editing a 5 minute video.
- enriquto 6y ago> Then, nothing. You'll check the analytics. Abysmal. Nobody is reading! > After all, how can you justify more time spent on something that doesn't pay back? If you think that the value of your writing is measured by the attention it attracts, you are set for a really rough and sad career as a writer.