Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog? • Hacker News Board

Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?

#51

Post by vstollen » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 6:57 AM UTC

Brajeshwar wrote: post #23

_the_inflator wrote: post #20

Dude is right, no one except for the audience cares. I was a successful blogger in the 00th years and with a side business around Made for Adsense because once you understood SEO it was inevitable, if this rings a bell. Reading a blog seems magical. Just imagine “Do ppl IRL my print magazine?” to use another metaphor. Nope and yes. Same goes for artists, say singer and songwriters: “Do you listen to my stuff?” Why sh…

I had removed Analytics from my website/blog quite a while back and I don't know who read, or what happens to my website anymore. It is a pleasure not knowing. Cloudflare does do the basic Analytics that comes built-in and I rarely see them.

Along the lines of Julia Evans’ “Optimize for conversions” [1], can you gauge the popularity of your post by the replies you get?

[1]: https://jvns.ca/blog/2018/02/20/measuring-blog-success/

Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?

#52

Post by froh » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 7:00 AM UTC

RajT88 wrote: post #50

The people in your real life don't give a shit about your blog. But random strangers do! At least, if you're contributing something to the world which is wonderful and useful. In my experience, the posts which get the most traffic are simply not going to be the ones you think they will be. I am thinking of both my public and internal blog posts at my company - the most read articles are dumb basic shit that nobody th…

TIL to languor

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/languor#Verb

Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?

#53

Post by winternewt » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 7:04 AM UTC

In the vein of the discussion here, I think it's relevant to highlight Kagi's Small web [1] initiative, which is intended to give more discoverability to sites like this. I find it to be admirable and it gives me some small hope for the future of the web.

[1] https://blog.kagi.com/small-web

Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?

#54

Post by brynet » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 7:05 AM UTC

blitzar wrote: post #49

brynet wrote: post #16

I showed my Mom my personal website a few years ago, and her only comment was it needed more pictures, so I added a picture of a window plant to exactly one page. I haven't showed it to anyone else IRL. https://brynet.ca/article-x395.html

The subject in the picture is the bottle of wine, not the plant.

Non-alcoholic. I don't drink. :-)

Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?

#55

Post by Pyrodogg » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 7:27 AM UTC

I had personal site on shared hosting with blog, microblog, "lifestream", photo gallery in the late 00s. It's been a 'placeholder' status for redevelopment since I think about 2011-12.

I got a job and started (over)working. Bugs/exploits in the PHP framework I was using took the site down a few times. Maintenance lagged, and I eventually zipped everything and shut it down.

I've found a better work life balance over the years, but just haven't connected the dots to ever doing something new with it. I think the last attempt foundered on picking a static site generator.

Most of my IRL friends and family barely use Facebook so I'm pretty sure few were ever very aware of what was on there.

Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?

#56

Post by FLpxpyJ » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 7:33 AM UTC

I think, a little ironically ofc, opening yourself up like that ends up capping how personal you can (are willing to) get. Not always a bad thing, but I believe the modern internet is missing a lot of soul that comes from being vulnerable. Lord knows social media personalities and corporate brands will never do it.

https://foreverliketh.is/

Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?

#57

Post by dewey » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 7:34 AM UTC

I felt very seen by this blog post. I sent it to my partner and she replied with “Sounds like you. What is IRL” which perfectly sums up the disconnect on some topics that the author also mentioned.

I just spend the past month rebuilding my blog, even though there’s nobody reading it and it really only is my “online home” to play around with and be creative.

My main source of traffic is random Google visits for some “I’ll write this down for myself in case I run into it again” type posts.

Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?

#58

Post by thomashabets2 » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 7:41 AM UTC

Pyrodogg wrote: post #55

I had personal site on shared hosting with blog, microblog, "lifestream", photo gallery in the late 00s. It's been a 'placeholder' status for redevelopment since I think about 2011-12. I got a job and started (over)working. Bugs/exploits in the PHP framework I was using took the site down a few times. Maintenance lagged, and I eventually zipped everything and shut it down. I've found a better work life balance over t…

This is why I use a static site generator. No security fix is ever urgent. No risk of needing to make a bunch of changes in case I need to move host, and they have a slightly different version of PHP. The thing never "fails to start" after a reboot. No database that can cause problems. It's just files. Anything can host just files.

My first site actually started as what we'd now call a static site generator back in the 1990s. Then PHP a few years later, then Python built on webpy.org (including an admin interface), and now back to a static site generator.

Most of my friends are computer people, and know and occasionally read my blog. My non computer friends could not care less.

Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?

#59

Post by nicbou » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 7:47 AM UTC

My blog has some of my recipes, and some of my friends appreciate that. Otherwise my blog is a beacon to other nerds on the internet, extra material for people who are curious about me. People do check it and reach out, so it works.

Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?

#60

Post by knorker » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 7:55 AM UTC

Brajeshwar wrote: post #22

During the early days of Blogging (I meant the early 2000s), when we met up in person during conferences, we talked a lot about blog posts, etc. I once let one of my cousins tag along as I spoke at a conference organized by Macromedia. I did the usual thing with others there, talking about blogs. When we returned home, my cousin said, “You are kind of a deal. People know you by your blog - brajeshwar.com.” I’ve been…

Actually producing value is so last millennium. Ok boomer, you add value. We don't do that here. Unless you make TikToks endlessly aspiring to be a societal net loss kardashian, why are you even breathing? Writing text? Can't the computer just do that, somehow?