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Why blog if nobody reads it?

andysblog.uk

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Re: Why blog if nobody reads it?

#21

Post by begueradj »

simonw wrote: post #11

Writing on a blog is a very inexpensive way to establish your credibility about different subjects. This pays off later down the line when you can link people to things you've written in the past. Credibility is a very valuable commodity. It's worth investing in ways to build more of it. Don't assume people will stumble across your content (though they will eventually via Google). Actively send links to people who yo…

Many people wrote about why it is important to blog, but I never heard of what you just stated about credibility. That's the best and most convincing thing I ever heard. Thank you very much for having shared it here.

Re: Why blog if nobody reads it?

#22

Post by jmclnx »

I blog on gopher and gemini, maintenance is very easy and it is simple to convert between gemini and gopher.

Do people read them ? I doubt it, maybe 1 or two once in a while. But as the article said there are other reasons to maintain a blog.

Re: Why blog if nobody reads it?

#23

Post by scinadier »

n_ary wrote: post #14
simonw wrote: post #11

Writing on a blog is a very inexpensive way to establish your credibility about different subjects. This pays off later down the line when you can link people to things you've written in the past. Credibility is a very valuable commodity. It's worth investing in ways to build more of it. Don't assume people will stumble across your content (though they will eventually via Google). Actively send links to people who yo…

Agreed, after a year or two, blogs become your experience logs to prove experience and credibility once the landscape is killed by GenAI slops and SEO scams. Anyone can generate a big portfolio of projects these days(be it graphics, video, software, writing etc) but blog posts from 2023 and before are proof and undeniable.

I've been treating public Git repository commits in the same vein - a receipt of incremental changes that show that an individual can do some programming. Granted this is not fool-proof - like all things that are complex, it needs to be evaluated with a suite of other factors and conditions to be determined valid. A website written in a personal voice is one of these factors.

Re: Why blog if nobody reads it?

#24

Post by wsintra2022 »

lapcat wrote: post #16

There's a point to writing, but is there a point to publishing your diary on the internet? You could just keep it under your pillow, or on your own computer. I blog so that other people read my writing, and fortunately they do, at least sometimes. I don't think I'd continue if there was no public interest.

Valid point, wonder why it was down voted. I was thinking that question myself, yes write down your thoughts in a journal digital or analog and you can always refer back to that time and place but what benefit do you get by giving it away for all to ignore or consume?

Re: Why blog if nobody reads it?

#25

Post by wsintra2022 »

kittikitti wrote: post #20

I don't have social media so my blogs are often the only ways my family and friends connect with me. I think this original article is misguided and the big tech brainwashing has us forget that we blog all the time on their social media apps. Those blog posts on TikTok, Instagram, or X are always there. It's a little insidious that there's no mention of that.

Social media posts are not really writing though. You do not write down detailed thoughts on social media it’s often more likely brain farts than anything.

Re: Why blog if nobody reads it?

#26

Post by tverbeure »

ZeWaren wrote: post #6

I document technical things on my blog and hardly anyone reads it. But later on when I need that thing again, I just go there and I have the perfect documentation available for the topic (it's perfect since I wrote it hahaha).

This happens to me all the time. I could make notes about how I did something and lose them, or I could spend an hour or two extra and convert it into a blog post, and I'll be able to refer to it over and over again.

Re: Why blog if nobody reads it?

#27

Post by d_burfoot »

Blogging is like all other content creation: the vast majority of the viewership goes to the top 0.1% of creators. This is the same whether you're talking about YouTube, Twitter, podcasts, OnlyFans, scientific papers, traditional books, etc etc.

Re: Why blog if nobody reads it?

#28

Post by stared »

> Future you. Your posts become a time capsule of your evolving mind.

Sometimes, I am the main beneficiary of my blog posts. But there is a much more practical point than bookmarking my progress — it is a polished resource with carefully selected references.

> One right person. Maybe one day, someone stumbles across your words at exactly the right moment. And that changes something for them.

Sometimes one. Sometimes a few.

In general, I have found that blog posts have a larger impact than my conference talks. At a conference, say, with 100 people in the audience, perhaps only 20 find it relevant. With a blog post, we may feel disappointed that only 1,000 people read it — which is small by blogging standards, but still way more than one would reach at a conference.

Re: Why blog if nobody reads it?

#29

Post by great_tankard »

This is not an original observation, but it took me too long to realize so I think it bears repeating: your personal website is also the one place where you have control over how much to write, how it looks to the reader and how long it stays up. Even though I'm a proponent of strict moderation on social media, it's ultimately a bad thing to hand over that kind of agency to the platforms.

Re: Why blog if nobody reads it?

#30

Post by kenmacd »

righthand wrote: post #10

Publish a blog so an LLM can use it and make money for someone already wealthy.

Obviously facetious, but I'd hope most people would want their blog post read by LLMs.

I suspect (hope) a lot of blog posts are written to share knowledge. In that regard having that knowledge trained in to LLMs (ideally open ones, but even closed ones) could further that goal.

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