Why are 95% of blogs abandoned? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#71

Post by susam » Wed, Oct 12, 2011, 9:06 AM UTC

acangiano wrote: post #11

tjr wrote: post #4

I started blogging about five years ago, more or less in the manner you describe. Wrote an excited post or two or three right away, then maybe another in a week or two, and then... slowly stopped. Then a year later picked it up again, and then stopped. I tried a variety of blog tools. I first had a blog at MIT, then when they killed that service, I tried several of the hip new services like Tumblr, Typepad, and Poste…

> there are all sorts of benefits to blogging besides making original contributions to exposition of a topic. And even though I realize this, I still get stuck a lot on the non-originality thing. Part of the problem is that many people see blogging as a teaching tool alone. More often than not, it's a conversation starter too, and the blogger ends up learning a great deal of new information in the process. And even i…

A very good point. I share a lot of puzzles and tech-notes on my blog. It might appear as a teaching tool to some but for me it is a great learning tool. An idea, a problem or a solution to a problem might exist in our mind in a confused form. But once we have to put it down in words for a larger audience, one has to re-think of the whole idea, problem or solution in a manner that can be expressed to a larger audience. This usually involves re-learning the idea in a simpler way.

In other words, I end up learning a lot in order to maintain a blog. The D-K effect won't bother one if one accepts the fact that a good blog helps you learn as much as it helps your readers learn. It's more about learning together rather than one person trying to teach other.

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#72

Post by JonoW » Wed, Oct 12, 2011, 11:54 AM UTC

mol2103 wrote: post #48

cbs wrote: post #22

I like this idea, I've had a thing or two I wanted to write on, but didn't want to setup a blog. I've actually thought of building something similar myself. So, excited about this website, I clicked on "Write a post". Oh, you want to tie to my twitter account. Nevermind.

Why not connect your Twitter account? We won't post anything on your behalf...perhaps we should have made that clearer :/

Sorry me too, you're asking for too many permissions, why not just read-only if it's auth only?

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#73

Post by roberthahn » Wed, Oct 12, 2011, 1:22 PM UTC

I'm thinking about rebooting my blog.

For me, the problem is the inherent sense of obligation implied when organizing posts by date. My last post was written April, 2009, which reported that I redesigned and restaged my blog.

Ironic, isn't it?

There are many ways to solve this problem. Postary's picked a really good one, and I'm looking forward to seeing how people responds to using them. But I know it's not the only way to address this problem.

These days I'm rethinking the way I write and publish. I like easy-to-publish. I like self-hosting. I don't want databases - static site generation for me please. I like blending in my activities on other sites (like Twitter). I don't like date-based organization (it doesn't make sense for the way I do my writing).

So I'm looking for (or writing) tools that support folksonomy-based URI navigation (which supports organic site growth), easy-publish, and importing and reformatting data from other social networks. If you have any pointers, send 'em my way.

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#74

Post by droz » Wed, Oct 12, 2011, 2:50 PM UTC

mol2103 wrote: post #26

droz wrote: post #25

I think a lot of blog abandonment is a consequence of shifting priorities. I started my most recent blog back in 2008 to keep track of the projects I was working on and to build a body of work that I could present along with a resume. A lot of the content I tried to capture was original work I had done; some of it was writing about something I had learned and tried to apply to a proof of concept. I went with a monthl…

What would make you stick to it? Or am I asking the wrong question: Does it even matter to you that you do stick to it?

I'm sure that I'll find myself updating it again. I think if I still had the motivation and focus I did when I was younger, I would be able to stick with it. But when blue skies and mountain calls you, you got to answer.

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#75

Post by cbs » Wed, Oct 12, 2011, 3:02 PM UTC

mol2103 wrote: post #48

cbs wrote: post #22

I like this idea, I've had a thing or two I wanted to write on, but didn't want to setup a blog. I've actually thought of building something similar myself. So, excited about this website, I clicked on "Write a post". Oh, you want to tie to my twitter account. Nevermind.

Why not connect your Twitter account? We won't post anything on your behalf...perhaps we should have made that clearer :/

>Why not

Why In the first place?

I plain old don't want to use my twitter account for this, or be forced to create a throwaway account on a completely unrelated service just to have a throwaway account for yours. And all because you can't be arsed to do any real auth, or allow users to post without accounts at all, which given the nature what you've built makes a whole, whole lot of sense. If I want to have to to make an account as a prerequisite to posting a one-off blogpost, I'll go get a blogger account.

I don't care if you promise a whole huggy bunch not to do anything with my twitter account. I don't trust you and I sure as hell don't trust your website's security.