4 ms·

Write Articles, Not Blog Postings (2007)

37 points by rahul_rstudio 14y ago

tangue 14y ago
He's assuming quality is distributed normally among blog posts without much explication on how he came to this conclusion. Usability deserves a better guru.
- T-A 14y ago
  Assuming that "quality" is the sum of a large number of independent factors, I guess the central limit theorem applies.
  - tangue 14y ago
    Maybe. But by reading his article even if it were a Pareto distribution, his arguments would have been valid. While the pieces of advice he gave are good, the pseudo-scientific explanation behind his intuitions ("The metric probably follows a normal distribution...", "I ran a Monte-Carlo simulation... " baffles me.
egypturnash 14y ago
Man I just treat my blog like I used to treat my Livejournal: I write about whatever I want to write. Sometimes that's "woo check out this cool YouTube video". Sometimes that's "hey come see me dance". Sometimes it's a dream I had. Sometimes it's musings on comics I like, or on the ones I'm working on. And every once in a great while I actually try to write up something about how I use the tools I've mastered. Then I get bored and go use them instead and post the cool new thing I've drawn.
- avolcano 14y ago
  I go for a hybrid approach. A personal blog (or nowadays, Twitter) for sharing random Youtube videos, commenting on politics, and other stuff, and then a "professional" blog for writing longer articles on. It's nice knowing potential employers can see writings that are actually relevant to my field, and not "check out this Gangnam Style parody" ;)
mooism2 14y ago
Before everyone has a knee-jerk reaction to the title, read this paragraph from about 15% down: ---- Obviously, I am referring to the user experience and to the style of the content in this analysis; not to the technology used to serve up this content. Thus, what I call "articles" might be hosted on a weblog service. What matters is that the user experience is that of immersion in comprehensive treatment of a topic, as opposed to a blog-style linear sequence of short, frequent postings commenting on the hot topic of the day. It doesn't matter what software is used to host the content, the distinctions are: * in-depth vs. superficial * original/primary vs. derivative/secondary * driven by the author's expertise vs. being reflectively driven by other sites or outside events

37 points by rahul_rstudio 14y ago

He's assuming quality is distributed normally among blog posts without much explication on how he came to this conclusion. Usability deserves a better guru.

T-A 14y ago
Assuming that "quality" is the sum of a large number of independent factors, I guess the central limit theorem applies.
- tangue 14y ago
  Maybe. But by reading his article even if it were a Pareto distribution, his arguments would have been valid. While the pieces of advice he gave are good, the pseudo-scientific explanation behind his intuitions ("The metric probably follows a normal distribution...", "I ran a Monte-Carlo simulation... " baffles me.

egypturnash 14y ago

Man I just treat my blog like I used to treat my Livejournal: I write about whatever I want to write. Sometimes that's "woo check out this cool YouTube video". Sometimes that's "hey come see me dance". Sometimes it's a dream I had. Sometimes it's musings on comics I like, or on the ones I'm working on. And every once in a great while I actually try to write up something about how I use the tools I've mastered. Then I get bored and go use them instead and post the cool new thing I've drawn.

avolcano 14y ago
I go for a hybrid approach. A personal blog (or nowadays, Twitter) for sharing random Youtube videos, commenting on politics, and other stuff, and then a "professional" blog for writing longer articles on. It's nice knowing potential employers can see writings that are actually relevant to my field, and not "check out this Gangnam Style parody" ;)

mooism2 14y ago

Before everyone has a knee-jerk reaction to the title, read this paragraph from about 15% down: ---- Obviously, I am referring to the user experience and to the style of the content in this analysis; not to the technology used to serve up this content. Thus, what I call "articles" might be hosted on a weblog service. What matters is that the user experience is that of immersion in comprehensive treatment of a topic, as opposed to a blog-style linear sequence of short, frequent postings commenting on the hot topic of the day. It doesn't matter what software is used to host the content, the distinctions are: * in-depth vs. superficial * original/primary vs. derivative/secondary * driven by the author's expertise vs. being reflectively driven by other sites or outside events