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Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

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Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#191

Post by lcall »

For me, very much so. My site (in profile) is not exactly a blog, but it lets me say things that might otherwise bore people in personal conversation, and then I can just refer to it briefly if a longer topic comes up, and they can read later or ignore if not interested. That has saved my wife from having to listen to yet another repeat of me going on about a favorite topic.

Plus, there are just things I want to say that are important to me. It is an outlet. I use my personal organizer software to make the writing easier, then export it in an outline form.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#192

Post by lbrito »

Absolutely. Have been writing on my blog (https://lbrito1.github.io/blog/) for 8 years.

>Does the time spent writing feels worth it to you?

Yes but YMMV. I enjoy writing. I was the kid at school that teachers hated grading because I filled the full space for answers in exams.

>Did it help to get noticed/ find jobs or other opportunities?

Hard to prove if it made an objective difference in hiring, but in all jobs I've had since blogging my bosses/hiring-committee coworkers mentioned that they enjoyed something I wrote in the blog. Also quite a few interviewers have mentioned it in the final rounds.

>Do you learn something new from it?

For sure. I learned that my phone-server survived HN frontpage. :)

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#193

Post by billconan »

I have had many blogs and I have built my own blogging platform.

But each time I decide to start a new blog, I couldn't keep writing after a while. Writing is mentally exhausting for me as a non-native English speaker.

I'm thinking about making videos instead. I want to make content in a more casual way.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#194

Post by koch »

podviaznikov wrote: post #97
cphaynes wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long have you used https://montaigne.io/ ? Never heard about it before; very interested. Love the simplicity of your site, by the way.

https://montaigne.io/ is my small project! It's a third iteration of it. For a few years I had following setup: 1. keep files in dropbox 2. sync them and publish automatically using montaigne.io Now I switched and instead of Dropbox I use Apple Notes. Because it's easier to write, and mobile UI is better and it supports tables and images out of the box.

I agree with what others have mentioned; Apple Notes -> website is a really good idea! +1 for custom domain support

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#195

Post by dboon »

ahnooie wrote: post #152

I've had a personal blog for 20 years (at https://b3n.org/ ). 1. I have met a lot of people who reached out to me by email; sometimes it's fun to find other people with similar interests, it's resulted in many good discussions (even with people with differing viewpoints). 2. I have not landed any jobs from it (but I have been offered a lot of contract work--I have turned every opportunity down because I don't want to…

> United States of America reject a Holy God, as long as sexual immorality and idolatry are rampant, the people of America will vote for an evil President who will appoint judges that bend the knee to Moloch. Leftism is a religion, and Abortion is the sacrament of that religion. The left will not give up child sacrifice easily.

From a recent blog post here.

Reading this next to a treatise comparing a new iPhone to a Google Pixel is one of the funniest things I’ve seen on the internet lately. Thank you sincerely for that.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#196

Post by tbjoern »

spacehunt wrote: post #142

Can I just say I'm so envious of all of you who are able to write publicly without worries? I did try to start a blog many, many years ago, but I can never get over my fears that whatever I put out publicly will inevitably be used against me, by someone with power, in one way or another. (Yes, including this comment.)

I feel the same way. In the end, privacy concerns won over public recognition for me.

CTRL F for privacy in this thread shows way too few results imo.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#197

Post by codedeadlock »

I started my blog after procrastinating for 5 years. I was in the perfection loop of how I will host it using SSR and Github Actions and all those things that will lure any developer. One day I just hosted Ghost on Digital Ocean Droplet and started publishing things from my emails and notebook.

Writing is a way for me to clear out my head, I usually scribble a lot in my notepad and recently in Obsidian. From past one year, I also share the things out in public on my blog - https://binaryho.me/

The traffic is < 5 daily users but that's not discouraging as I find peace in writing.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#199

Post by jcmontx »

podviaznikov wrote: post #97
cphaynes wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long have you used https://montaigne.io/ ? Never heard about it before; very interested. Love the simplicity of your site, by the way.

https://montaigne.io/ is my small project! It's a third iteration of it. For a few years I had following setup: 1. keep files in dropbox 2. sync them and publish automatically using montaigne.io Now I switched and instead of Dropbox I use Apple Notes. Because it's easier to write, and mobile UI is better and it supports tables and images out of the box.

This is awesome, I will give it a try

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#200

Post by a4isms »

This is Raganwald, (http://raganwald.com).

I'm glad you mentioned both a blog AND a brand. They can go together (as they have done for me), but I honestly get different things out of them. Blogging helped me work out my thoughts on many subjects, not all of which were useful for "building my brand."

The brand, on the other hand, helped me build enough personal security to feel safe taking chances like quitting my job long enough to write a book or three (e.g. https://leanpub.com/javascriptallongesix/read).

So, each one contributed to the other, but I feel they delivered different benefits to me personally.

Now as to whether the blog or the brand have been worth it to me... I'd say blogging was worth it to me independently of the brand, and I'd do it again exactly the same even if I knew I wouldn't build a brand again.

In fact, if I started today under an alias, I probably wouldn't build the same brand. I think a lot of my minor, b-list success was my work, but a lot of it was timing as well, my first modern blog-post was published in 2004, and that was a time when it was much easier to stand out.

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