3 ms·

2012 Blogging Year in Review and 2013 Goals

5 points by dmor 14y ago

Alex3917 14y ago
Interesting. The problem with blogging (imho) as a medium is that it rewards mediocrity. Spending 6-8 hours per post is probably the sweet spot in terms of making it onto the front page of HN or whatever, and past 12 hours the addition return on investment is minimal to non-existant. The best strategy for getting followers therefor is to generally write well, but to minimize time spent doing actual research and/or serious thought. It's kind of frustrating, especially since RSS is basically dead so there isn't really any endgame. A lot of my blog posts are things I've spent 100+ hours working on, but at that point it's basically just art with no practical business or reputational value.
- dmor 14y ago
  I agree, it is easy to spend way too much time on a post - as a rule I spend no more than 3 hours on a post, and I kind of embrace mediocrity. At some point (often way before hitting the full 3 hours), the value of publishing and starting a conversation become greater than producing a perfect piece of writing that may come from more time spent editing and refining the post itself. A lot of the posts I spent the least time on did the best on HN, and some of the ones I labored over and loved the most linger in obscurity. The best thing that happened because of my blog this year, at least external of my own personal happiness at self-expression, was a woman approaching me at a conference who read my most popular post, quit her job, and started a company. It's hard to explain why that's so valuable a feeling, because she was probably nearly ready to make that decision and my post just came at the right time, but it gives me a sense of connectedness with other people that I think a lot of Internet citizens are missing. Mediocre writing, first rate conversations and happiness. I hope in 2013 you'll lower the bar on the writing and publish more, you might really enjoy it.
  - Alex3917 14y ago
    "I hope in 2013 you'll lower the bar on the writing and publish more, you might really enjoy it." I have one more long post I'm determined to finish if it kills me. It's already 30,000+ words, so granted it's arguably not even a blog post anymore. But yeah, I'm basically cataloging all the infrastructure problems in the US. So I'm taking all the different issues you see people bring up all the time in various articles, linking every single fact to a primary source, and aggregating all those in one place. And then writing some analysis on top. After that I'll go back to writing shorter stuff though.

5 points by dmor 14y ago

Interesting. The problem with blogging (imho) as a medium is that it rewards mediocrity. Spending 6-8 hours per post is probably the sweet spot in terms of making it onto the front page of HN or whatever, and past 12 hours the addition return on investment is minimal to non-existant. The best strategy for getting followers therefor is to generally write well, but to minimize time spent doing actual research and/or serious thought. It's kind of frustrating, especially since RSS is basically dead so there isn't really any endgame. A lot of my blog posts are things I've spent 100+ hours working on, but at that point it's basically just art with no practical business or reputational value.

dmor 14y ago
I agree, it is easy to spend way too much time on a post - as a rule I spend no more than 3 hours on a post, and I kind of embrace mediocrity. At some point (often way before hitting the full 3 hours), the value of publishing and starting a conversation become greater than producing a perfect piece of writing that may come from more time spent editing and refining the post itself. A lot of the posts I spent the least time on did the best on HN, and some of the ones I labored over and loved the most linger in obscurity. The best thing that happened because of my blog this year, at least external of my own personal happiness at self-expression, was a woman approaching me at a conference who read my most popular post, quit her job, and started a company. It's hard to explain why that's so valuable a feeling, because she was probably nearly ready to make that decision and my post just came at the right time, but it gives me a sense of connectedness with other people that I think a lot of Internet citizens are missing. Mediocre writing, first rate conversations and happiness. I hope in 2013 you'll lower the bar on the writing and publish more, you might really enjoy it.
- Alex3917 14y ago
  "I hope in 2013 you'll lower the bar on the writing and publish more, you might really enjoy it." I have one more long post I'm determined to finish if it kills me. It's already 30,000+ words, so granted it's arguably not even a blog post anymore. But yeah, I'm basically cataloging all the infrastructure problems in the US. So I'm taking all the different issues you see people bring up all the time in various articles, linking every single fact to a primary source, and aggregating all those in one place. And then writing some analysis on top. After that I'll go back to writing shorter stuff though.