I've been considering doing this as well, if only for me to engage better with the things I read.
Build a link blog like Simon Willison
41–50 of 56 posts
Re: Build a link blog like Simon Willison
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
This... might be what I need to do honestly. I've thought about a good way to save some links I find on HN, and its painful to go back through pages. Heck, sometimes I lose my own comments. A blog might just be the way to regain access to lost content from HN.
I use Tumblr to save interesting links. It gives me a nice chronological record of stuff I'm interested in. It acts as a memory aid too - when I need to find something but can't remember the name but I know I blogged it a few weeks ago.
I used to use Tumblr, but for memes. Any time I try to make a new account, nostalgia kicks in, and I just don't want to use it, I had friendships I'll never get back on there.
Re: Build a link blog like Simon Willison
#43Suggestion: Add waybackmachine/archive URL for each of the link that you blog about. Archive it if it's not there already.
This is such an important task. The web is constantly moving, we have to protect against bitrot.
https://github.com/hoarder-app/hoarder is great for this purpose.
Re: Build a link blog like Simon Willison
#44It seems like simon started a trend :)
I implemented this feature on my blog a couple of weeks ago. I view it as the equivalent of a retweet, only that I own the content. If someone wants to subscribe, they can follow the respective rss feed. Maybe in the future I automatically push the updates to mastodon/bluesky/etc.
feed section: https://staticnotes.org/feed/
rss feed: https://staticnotes.org/feed.xml
Re: Build a link blog like Simon Willison
#45I love how this post is an exact implementation of my advice on link blogging (add some personal commentary, quote liberally) - applied to my article about link blogging. Very meta. https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/22/link-blog/
Random, been reading your blog and following posts for years esp since llm boom and I'm just noticing it's Willison not Williamson lol.
Re: Build a link blog like Simon Willison
#46I’ve seen Simon’s blog suddenly posted on the front page nearly daily. Did something change recently that it became more popular?
I think it's just a fluke. You'll notice that I didn't submit any of the recent links myself - I don't tend to submit stuff from my link blog, I only submit my longer-form writing.
Here's everything from my domain: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=simonwillison.net
A few of my recent self-submissions went nowhere, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42810520 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42461073 for example.
Re: Build a link blog like Simon Willison
#47I would say "link blogging" is how weblogs started: Relatively short logs of your accomplishments or mysteries you had solved that day or just musings about one's recent discoveries on the web published on the web. It was an answer to more static "personal websites" where any new article had to justify its existence by meeting a certain threshold of novelty and newsworthiness. Weblogs got shorter and shorter, Tumblr started, then some went on to this new thing called Twitter.
Re: Build a link blog like Simon Willison
#48All blogs should have an RSS feed - I wasn't able to find one on Simon Willison's blog.
I find the page format hard to read - a mass of text studded with links - it would benefit from more typographic structure - headings and so on.
Re: Build a link blog like Simon Willison
#49This is almost like reaction videos on YouTube but done properly by adding insightful commentary along the way.
I can see a trend like this in the blogosphere being beneficial for everyone involved specially the readers.
Re: Build a link blog like Simon Willison
#50All blogs should have an RSS feed - I wasn't able to find one on Simon Willison's blog. I find the page format hard to read - a mass of text studded with links - it would benefit from more typographic structure - headings and so on.
My feed is linked from the orange feed icon at the top right of the homepage, and also from the Subscribe section linked from each page which takes you to this: https://simonwillison.net/about/#subscribe
Are you using a screen reader or some other non-standard browser?