3 ms·
1. Readership If you write a blog post, how do people become aware of the blog post? Relatively few people follow RSS feeds, so you also need a social media po
by lapcat 3y ago
1. Readership
If you write a blog post, how do people become aware of the blog post? Relatively few people follow RSS feeds, so you also need a social media post linking to the blog post. With such a link, there's only one opportunity to go viral, one opportunity for each person on social media to see the link to the blog post. Whereas with a long thread of multiple short social media posts, there are many opportunities to go viral, one for each post of the thread.
2. Ranting vs. Research
Speaking only for myself, I consider my blog to be my "permanent record", whereas social media is my fleeting thoughts. Indeed, I frequently delete my social media posts, whereas I almost never delete my blog posts. I have blog posts going back to 2006. And I typically spend a lot more time writing a blog post: not in terms of the technical aspects of writing, e.g., typing, but rather in terms of thinking, researching, ensuring that everything I say in the blog post is accurate and well-supported, with external citations when necessary. Just look at Dan's own blog post here: you'd never see that same level of organization and citation in a social media thread.
- cebert 3y ago> If you write a blog post, how do people become aware of the blog post? There are other solutions to the readership problem with independent blogs. I am trying to start blogging this year and am using Ghost as the CMS. I pay for the hosted solution that is $11/mo and provides readers the ability to subscribe for email updates. This isn’t a unique feature to Ghost, several other platforms support this too. I can say Ghost makes supporting this trivial.
- lapcat 3y agoI've never heard of Ghost, so I'm not sure how much that would help with readership. In any case, external hosts undermine the goal of having the blog be a permanent record. External hosts are fleeting. They can shut down. Even Twitter itself could shut down due to massively declining ad revenue. And even though Twitter is still operating now (well, technically, "Twitter" did stop operating and was replaced with "X"), the site has started to put content behind a login wall that was previously public. Self-hosting is the only way to keep control of your content.
- mlrtime 3y ago>my blog to be my "permanent record", whereas social media is my fleeting thoughts. Indeed, I frequently delete my social media posts HN Doesn't allow comment deletes, so is this a blog for you?
- lapcat 3y agoThat's a bizarre question. Luu's blog post is about longform primary content: blog posts, YouTube videos, and long Twitter threads. HN comments are neither longform nor primary. In this case, Luu's blog post is the longform primary content, and these HN comments are short, secondary content. I don't actually delete all of my social media posts. The point about deletion was to emphasize that they are fleeting thoughts. The crucial distinction is between spur-of-the-moment hot takes and carefully crafted, researched essays.
- mlrtime 3y agoThe question didn't mean to come off as bizarre. Obviously this isn't a blog, but since we can't delete comments does he (and others likeminded) steer more towards blog-type writing and less social media (which HN is).