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Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

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Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#381

Post by encelad »

I closed my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts and instead started having a personal website. I basically want people to find my contact details and some very basic infos about myself online without having to be on these attention eating social networks.

I really dislike how LinkedIn tries to get you to put your full CV online. Yeah, you don’t have to but it looks bad to have an empty LinkedIn profile.

The trigger for me to close my LinkedIn account was that my then boss asked why I had deleted my CV from LinkedIn. In a bullying tone that implied I had something to hide. Which wasn’t true, I simply never had posted the history of my job positions on LinkedIn because … I think that’s rather private info that I only share when I apply to new jobs. So there really is social pressure to share more than you want on LinkedIn.

That’s different with my personal website. There, I have full control over what impression I want to give to visitors and what information I want to share.

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#383

Post by vjeux »

xrd wrote: post #335
xrd wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I wrote an article about your talk at OSCON (published on The New Stack). https://thenewstack.io/javascripts-history-and-how-it-led-to... You discussed how the diff algorithm improved from O(n^3) to O(n). I'll never forget that talk.

It's interesting that we are both Christopher, and that we both eschew usernames starting with c. That's how I recalled who you were in your comment. I went with x because Xmas. And because Christopher is such a common name I wanted something different. I wonder why you went with v, another uncommon letter.

I was 12 and needed a nickname to play counter strike. I thought about “jeux video” (video games in French) -> “video jeux” -> “vjeux”

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#384

Post by flybrand »

Once I found a theme - detailed reviews of manufacturing books - I get calls all the time that lead to consulting gigs that are fun.

https://fredlybrand.com/2018/10/15/goldratts-the-goal-chapte...

The counts are low for the blog posts and the video views, but what does come in is a qualified lead who already wants to do something interesting.

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#385

Post by flybrand »

encelad wrote: post #381

I closed my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts and instead started having a personal website. I basically want people to find my contact details and some very basic infos about myself online without having to be on these attention eating social networks. I really dislike how LinkedIn tries to get you to put your full CV online. Yeah, you don’t have to but it looks bad to have an empty LinkedIn profile. The trigger for me…

I’m always shocked to see people who build up a huge portfolio on LinkedIn - especially after their censorship.

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#386

Post by flybrand »

Vibgyor5 wrote: post #80
benwerd wrote: post #63

I've been blogging since 1998 and can trace every major step forward in my career to my blog. In 2003 I started writing about social networking and education - the replies to that blog post helped me kickstart my first startup. In 2009 my blog posts about technology ethics led to me giving a talk at Harvard, which led to my becoming the first employee at a media tech startup. That in turn led to me learning more abou…

> I recommend it. Start a blog - on your own domain, on webspace that you control. Following up on this - any specific reason behind this? I am considering starting a newsletter soon to first gather audience and Substack looks like right solution for this without requiring much technical setup, esp. as a non-tech. Idea is to first start blogging, get into that mindspace, build an audience and then you can move it to…

The platforms age out, change, censor, etc. also, you may go through periods over time where you are less active - and the long term persistence of your writings is more valuable if in one place.

Having something you own allows for drift in subject matter over time.

https://fredlybrand.com/2020/05/28/better-writing-better-com...

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#387

Post by adityaathalye »

My blog is an exercise in thinking in public (writing = thinking).

I restarted late 2021, after over a decade off-web. Back then (in hindsight) it was me trying to look clever. I used to dislike my writing.

These days I'm fairly happy with my posts.

I try to be correct, but not clever. In fact I'm happy to be corrected --- that's the whole point! I try to write in my own voice, but I don't aim for literary finesse. I don't write for any particular audience, but I do share links in communities of kindred gentlenerds out of common interest.

Several wonderful conversations have happened so far.

The most unexpected was a brief conversation with the grandmaster Douglas McIlroy himself. I'd cold-emailed him a thank you and linked to my post featuring his famous shell pipeline. I received generous critique and advice. That week, I was walking on clouds :)

I've also had a couple of unexpected (and nice!) "front page of HN" experiences.

Recently, one of my blog posts on my Org Mode workflow hit the front page. If my analytics is to be believed, it has taken on a second life bouncing off various parts of the Internet. That front-paging was warm on the heels of another recent Show HN I did of my site maker (written in Bash), which generated some lively discussion :)

Overall, I'm quite pleased with how it's going!

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#388

Post by flybrand »

HPsquared wrote: post #92
ludovicianul wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any particular reason for emphasising the "own domain /control"?

If you're a tech person it serves as portfolio piece and example of stewardship skill.

… and for us non techies it shows we can at least try and RTFM.

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#389

Post by flybrand »

I’d worked in technical fabrics for 15 years when c19 came out, and my personal blog allowed a balance between the chaos of the n95 supply chain at work and the flood of inquiries. There were a lot of non-monetary positive things we got done, in addition to the surge in business.

https://fredlybrand.com/2020/03/21/personal-credentials-on-p...

Re: Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?

#390

Post by ryantgtg »

My blog at one point slightly morphed into a music blog, wherein I ripped vinyl to mp3 that was mostly not yet available online (90s hardcore punk). I kept this up for a few years and it was pretty popular. One time a person commented on a post, and we ended up chatting on twitter, then emailing, then visiting, and then I moved to her city and we dated and got married and had a kid. I actually looked up her comment the other day - it’s so funny that something so simple triggered all of this. It’s been 12 years since that comment.
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