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Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?

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Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?

#71

Post by krater23 »

simonw wrote: post #49
loktarogar wrote: post #41

AI scrapes niche blogs, Google deranks or spam drowns them out. It's really not a good time to be starting niche blogs.

The most depressing thing about AI these days is seeing people cite it as a reason NOT to create useful content! Feels very nihilistic.

It's just, no one will read it, beside of some machines. Blogging was fun because you knows that someone is reading it. You had some comments under your articles. When this isn't there, you can just write your stuff in a paper book and put it in your drawer. And today, there is absolutely no one who will read it, or react to it. Only AI inhales the information and shows it without giving credit to people that never will hear about you. You just fill their database with useful data for free. Thats all.

Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?

#73

Post by bluefirebrand »

simonw wrote: post #49
loktarogar wrote: post #41

AI scrapes niche blogs, Google deranks or spam drowns them out. It's really not a good time to be starting niche blogs.

The most depressing thing about AI these days is seeing people cite it as a reason NOT to create useful content! Feels very nihilistic.

Having everything you make stolen and fed into the AI machine absolutely is a good reason not to create anything useful. Or at least a good reason not to post it online

Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?

#74

Post by braza »

simonw wrote: post #49
loktarogar wrote: post #41

AI scrapes niche blogs, Google deranks or spam drowns them out. It's really not a good time to be starting niche blogs.

The most depressing thing about AI these days is seeing people cite it as a reason NOT to create useful content! Feels very nihilistic.

Yes, it is. I've blogged since 2006, and after the content-oriented-to-SEO boom, I totally lost hope in writing online again. Part of me wants to write for the sake of sharing, but the other part thinks being a free content farm for AI is quite depressing.

On top of that, discoverability is dead, SEO indexing for attribution of original works does not exist, the culture of rehashing content for walled gardens like LinkedIn and Medium is out of control, and the substackzation of writing does not make things optimistic.

Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?

#75

Post by chrisweekly »

Venn1 wrote: post #6

Two years ago I started a niche blog and tech site focused on hardware and software guides for Linux creatives. Even set up a forum because I was fed up with digging through scattered mailing lists and Discord servers for information. I like to think it has helped some people and it gives me a chance to practice writing human-readable documentation.

link?

Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?

#76

Post by jclarkcom »

ricardobeat wrote: post #2

> But with the revival of personal blogs well underway Is it? I haven't seen anyone in my circle return to blogging, nor kids of this generation. Discoverability is going to be a massive problem, since search engines are dead. Maybe word-of-mouth through social media is enough?

I restarted my blog after a 20 year break (https://jonathanclark.com) thanks to AI making taking out the drudgery.

Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?

#78

Post by mawise »

The article goes back and forth between bloggers who "are doing well" (ie: making money) and efforts that are non-commercial. It comes across as asking humanity to put more effort into writing and publishing in a non-profitable space while the blogging incentives are profit. I still think the unexplored space for blogging (and the LLM-proof space) is _private_ blogging--for friends and family. But maybe Facebook killed that space off, who knows.
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