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If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs (2020)

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Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs (2020)

#41

Post by nickjj »

slightknack wrote: post #14
tinyprojects wrote: post #11

I've built a service that lets you create a micro-blog from a paper journal: https://paperwebsite.com/ It's given me great joy just publishing my unfiltered thoughts on the internet straight from my pen, which sounds similar to the "unfocused blogs" the author was talking about. Perhaps in this highly edited, Instagram world we now live in - the raw, unedited nature of a blog is a bit more scary. I still love them th…

I vote that we add our blogs / other good blogs we have come across as children on this comment. I'll start, here's mine: - https://slightknack.dev/blog Here are some others: - https://journal.stuffwithstuff.com - https://www.gwern.net/index - https://danluu.com - https://tonsky.me/ - https://lemire.me/blog/ - https://waitbutwhy.com/ - https://www.kalzumeus.com/archive/ - https://blog.codinghorror.com/

I have one at: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/

I've been at it for over 6 years and there's around 350 posts. It's a mixture of written blog posts and YouTube videos. The general focus is on building and deploying web applications as well as dev environment tweaks. Basically everything I encounter as a developer.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs (2020)

#42

Post by brabel »

throwawaaaaay17 wrote: post #40

Substack is driving a blog renaissance. A ton of high-quality niche blogs popping up everywhere. See, for example, https://antonhowes.substack.com/ (I'm not affiliated with the writer, though I am considering switching from free to paid)

Why would I use this instead of my own domain and a website hosted for free on Netlify or GitHub Pages?

I can get quite a lot of views by posting my latest posts to the relevant forums (HN, Reddit, programming forums)... if there's any advantage I am not seeing, I actually do want to know.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs (2020)

#43

Post by Tomte »

solarengineer wrote: post #7

How do you all discover blogs? I used to discover blogs via the Yahoo Directory, blog rolls (where we mention others' blogs as external links to follow up), Live Journal's listing, and cross-referencing of blog posts. Google search used to surface blog posts too. Now it's all on Medium - where I don't grudge those who want reliable hosting+discoverability and want to get paid for content, and where Medium charges for…

From other blogs. People link to other blogs all the time, and every few weeks I find a gem this way.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs (2020)

#44

Post by piaste »

Dudeman112 wrote: post #37
giansegato wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means - whether we like it or no - that social media were and are superior products when it comes to this specific use case, otherwise people won't be using it.

What do you mean by "superior product"?

They fulfill the same desire with less effort.

Most people didn't blog in order to produce great art or advance human knowledge. Those who did, they tend to still blog.

But most regular Joe bloggers just wanted to share ideas or experiences with other people, connect with them, and hear _their_ ideas and experiences. Writing a 500-word blog post was just the means to start a chat in the comments section. For them, Facebook or Twitter do it better.

I remember when Tumblr started (it didn't have a specific culture yet). Some of my blogging friends opened a Tumblr just to share links and pictures, and kept to WordPress for long-form posts. Eventually, they quickly started spending more times in link exchanging and commenting on Tumblr than on WP.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs (2020)

#45

Post by pantulis »

Of course social media hit blogs hard on its day. I miss the times when a blogger would publish how bad her morning went, pictures of his new dog, or how great was the latest TV launch. This is basically all gone to social media.

But I also think that the coffin in the nail was given by people like myself subscribing to too many sites that provide RSS feeds. Seems like a good idea, having all that info in your newsreader, but after all The Verge, Hacker News and a few other media can dwarf any personal blogs so your reader basically is infoxicated.

The best way to discover blogs is... also reading blogs.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs (2020)

#46

Post by q-base »

I used to love photo-blogs. Not just single images like IG and the like, but just random photo-blogs where the people who took the pictures share a bit of thoughts/stories behind the pictures no matter how trivial. My biggest inspiration back in the day was probably Jon Olsson before he started video blogging instead.

So I have started doing so myself and really enjoy the process of putting them together and sharing just because it is the kind of content I like to consume myself.

If any of you have good recommendations on photo-blogs then please let me know. I will sure try some of the search-engines and discovery tools shared in this thread already.

And for shameless self-promotion here is a link to where I will post going forward: https://jesperreiche.com/category/photography/

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs (2020)

#47

Post by tarkin2 »

There's medium. But medium is a horrible mess. There's Dev.to which is at least usable and something I will visit.

There's a couple of problems with blogs.

- Sometimes I only want to subscribe to an author's certain topics

- There's still no good RSS reader; I use feedly, but its load-time puts me off it big time (I've tried plenty of others)

- The tendency to sign up for walled garden platforms rather than platforms, or simply use normal websites, that federate well

- The practical death of web rings for discoverability

I've been thinking about the last point more: I don't really want to submit to a search engine's algorithm; I want someone's curated recommendations.

Once I've have those curated recommendations I want something that lets me aggregate and interact.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs (2020)

#49

Post by SMAAART »

Evolution of offline information networks:

Printing press -> Radio -> Television

Evolution of online information networks:

Blogs -> Podcasts -> Videos

What is interesting is that:

1. Podcasts > Videos since they can be consumed in more places than Videos

2. People love and consume long forms podcasts (>1 hour)

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs (2020)

#50

Post by flybrand »

s_dev wrote: post #10
nxpnsv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have discovered many blogs reading HN...

Yeah -- off the top of my head: danluu.com, plover.com, ciechanow.ski, essays by pg and many others have very high quality writing and are insightful. I don't accept there is a shortage of blogs.

I’ve got one topic that gets a lot of referral traffic, and then people follow the other more rambling personal stories. Twitter and YouTube drive a lot of traffic too.
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