5 ms·
So there are at least two separate use cases that get shoved into blogging. The first (and probably most useful) treats the blog as something like a diary: com
by kylemaxwell 15y ago
So there are at least two separate use cases that get shoved into blogging.
The first (and probably most useful) treats the blog as something like a diary: commentary on current events at some scale, e.g. personal, professional, news, et cetera. In this case, older content really does have much less relevance because the events themselves now live in the past. Your friends /might/ care about what you drank last night, but they almost certainly don't care about 5 months 12 days ago. You might want to comment on Linus' latest mailing list screed, but it might not matter for kernel-dabbling four years down the road.
The second use case seems to be where Daniel Tenner really is chewing on something. If you're writing new stuff that doesn't necessarily live in the moment - musings on philosophy or cool data structures or life advice or Paul Graham's articles - then the blog model doesn't fit as well. Newer posts don't matter more than older posts, and in fact might matter less.
Thinking on this, we also have the issue of serendipity. The writer has probably created other stuff that you might like reading even if it's not directly about the exact same topic. Seems like the sort of thing attacked by collaborative filtering and other methods. Combine that with a CMS-style knowledge architecture (e.g. structure by something other than chronology if chronology doesn't make sense), and you're getting somewhere.
- swombat 15y agoVery well analysed. And I definitely agree about serendipity. That's a huge concern for me, and one reason why I haven't categorised the Founder's Library section yet. Splitting it into categories like the excellent http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive makes a lot of sense, but it almost completely takes away the serendipitous aspect, which is essential for startup advice. The article you really should read is often not the one you're looking for. A system that makes it too easy to find what you think you need might paradoxically make it harder to stumble onto what you actually needed. I also think that almost every great blogger who starts with the first use case ends up posting numerous timeless gems that get lost in the diary format. DaringFireball is, again, the obvious example.
- kylemaxwell 15y agoSo maybe we as bloggers need to think more about curating our content. Organizing past posts into relevant series, maybe: if I've written several times about reverse engineering malware in a blog that ranges widely over the topic of incident response, then readers who like one post would probably like pointers to other posts. Having one or two "possibly related posts" doesn't seem to really cover the need here. So I'm not quite sure how to go about fixing the issue.
- mkr-hn 15y agoContent marketers call that cornerstone content, but it works outside marketing. It's just a collection of posts on a subject (sometimes with commentary).
- nigelsampson 15y agoSeries was one thing I added to my blog as a way to group posts into a ordered series and so to let people see related content. I think its become very useful.