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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)

#151

Post by eddieroger »

adrianN wrote: post #76
d3nj4l wrote: post #56

As a minor counterpoint: I've come to dread blogs and newsletters because so many of them are written by grind culture freaks who only write faux-insightful SEO'd content as a way to build an audience to sell snake oil to. These days the only blogs I trust are the ones I see on the top of HN or lobsters, which is unfortunate because I have interests beyond tech and I find it very, very difficult to find good blogs I…

The lack of central discovery is one of the main appeals of blogs imho. I don't want to discover blogs via a directory. I want to discover them through links from blogs I already read or recommendations from friends. I think blogs started dieing when they optimized for maximizing their audience instead of being locations where people write about stuff that interests them without an expectation of "making it".

I actually think I would like a directory, because I fear the link-only propagation method would lead to echo chambers. But then how do you have a trustworthy directory, and how does it not also become an echo chamber. Reddit could almost be that, but clearly they don't have a handle on being not-an-echo-chamber yet.

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

#152

Post by TOGoS »

prionassembly wrote: post #103
nabla9 wrote: post #4

They never went away. There are more of them and they are better than before.

Can we maybe have a self-promotion thread? I'm at asemic-horizon.com

Sure, why not.

Rarely updated, but I write about gridbeam and software at http://www.nuke24.net/plog/. If you like reading about people's dreams, on the other hand, http://www.nuke24.net/dlog/

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

#153

Post by mkr-hn »

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)

The problem with Substack (and Revue) is their publisher policy. The moment you turn on payments, you either bend to the ambiguity and only get your income from them, or you risk it with a Patreon or an online store for a purpose that isn't well-served by a newsletter.

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

#154

Post by rchaud »

Jugurtha wrote: post #141
d3nj4l wrote: post #56

As a minor counterpoint: I've come to dread blogs and newsletters because so many of them are written by grind culture freaks who only write faux-insightful SEO'd content as a way to build an audience to sell snake oil to. These days the only blogs I trust are the ones I see on the top of HN or lobsters, which is unfortunate because I have interests beyond tech and I find it very, very difficult to find good blogs I…

I have installed a Chrome extension to remove certain "data science" blogs from my search results because they just dominate, but allow posts from practically anyone. I'm not interested in the teachings of a data virgin on machine learning. I have muted and blocked accounts on Twitter as well because of that: people clearly never having touched real data talking about ML projects, recommending libraries to manage lif…

The UX/UI area is just as bad. It's nearly impossible to find authoritative discussions outside of conference slide decks, which aren't ideal for reading as standalone documents, as they only have bullet points.

However there is no shortage of useless "app redesign" case studies from complete amateurs. And it's always the same ones too: Starbucks, Netflix, Snapchat, Instagram and Spotify.

How about a public health website? Or a university application system? Or something "boring" that's much more realistic for a case study than a billion dollar corp's app?

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

#155

Post by BiteCode_dev »

pixelgeek wrote: post #135
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think is a need for some platform that provides blog+microblog on your domain, and that automatically forwards the content to social platforms so that you get the best of both worlds: 1 - owning your blog is too big of a barrier of entry, there is a need for a platform: look at the success at medium for tech writers, despite that we hate it. 2 - we need the return of the domain name based blog. This helps with…

> forwarding all posts to your social networks is essential. I've been talking to businesses for years about this same thing. Using a blog as a way to broadcast to social media but keep the blog/site as the main source of information for your audience. And it never works because it is far too simple to just use social media directly and even if you don't, your audience still comments on social media and so your discu…

> your audience still comments on social media and so your discussion remains there.

Discussion should remain on social media. This avoids the problems of moderation and spam that plagued blogs.

> it is far too simple to just use social media directly

Yes to succeed the blog platform should be super easy to setup and to link.

There are benefits that can then attract people:

- if you have several social accounts, on the same or different platforms, then having a centralized way of publishing on all of them is a nice perk

- social media platform impose a lot of rules, but on your blog, you can do whatever you want. So for problematic content, you can tease on social networks, and bring people on your blog for the real uncensored thing.

- the source of truth that the blog would be is a fine touch in this era of fake news

- you can add paid sections to the blog and make money directly with your biggest fans

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

#157

Post by rchaud »

Here are the "blogs" I've discovered recently:

1) Random side hustle site about making weekend planners and selling via Kindle Direct Publishing. Found on a search for "Affinity Publisher 5x8 template"

2) Website Builder Report: A site that does "reviews" of website builders, e.g. Squarespace and has a convenient coupon code for each site being reviewed. Found on a search for "static file CMS"

3) Plausible Analytics, which has stumbled upon the ultimate HN bait - criticizing Google Analytics. Found on HN, because where else would this appear?

Seems like people aren't interested in writing words on the Internet unless they expect to get paid from it somehow.

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

#158

Post by daitangio »

Facebook rulez, until years ago, I discovered I cannot say what I want (respecting people, for sure): some words are not permitted in groups name, and even some posts can be flagged as "inappropriate" by some AI.

I understand why Facebook need to do it, but sometimes it limit my expressiveness (I am Italian, and my language has a very huge set of synonyms and nuances of terms).

So I have kept my Blog alive and kicking in the last 20 years and it is my place where: - I can write what I want and I take my responsibilities - NO one can ban me from by blog - Users can comment and I decide the moderation rules. And yes I own my site comments. - No advertising I do not want. My pages are super fast - Nice printing capabilities - I can link other blogs/article I like - I store images on my own, to avoid to loose external image links. - I get tracebacks in comments.

On the downside: - Video bandwidth can be a pain if you do not want advertising on it - I must pay for it (but for 5 bucks / month it is a good deal for the freedom to say what do you want). - I got less traction in respect of Facebook.

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

#160

Post by gallerdude »

I just started a new blog [1].

I can't explain why, but the whole thing is kind of terrifying. I don't want to become one of those blogs you find that have 300 articles since 2008. The kind of blogs only have 1 or 2 comments on each post, screaming into the void what's going on with their life.

Because of this fear, the only way I ever did write something was basically to force myself to have something posted by the end of the weekend. But now I have the same fear again, so I'll probably have to do the same thing.

[1] https://www.museum-on-the-coast.com/

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