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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?

#231

Post by graemep »

kukkeliskuu wrote: post #162
ksec wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest problem so far is with cost. I dont like recurring fees. I could pay a one-time fee for say 100 pages and last an eternality ( or 50 years or something ). I also dont like subscription, and it has nothing to do with subscription fatigue, it is just the way I manage my money since before Youtube or Netflix took off. And so far I haven't seen any viable options. And right now I use HN comments as more like a…

I use GitHub Pages for personal blogs. Connect it with your personal domain name in case later you want to run it somewhere else.

Given the tiny cost of running a blog, especially if you have a domain name, is it worth the saving? Its not even much work if you use a static site builder.

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

#233

Post by hexbin010 »

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.

No shade: you're very, very bullish on AI though, so naturally you wouldn't think AI should or could be a hinderence to well, anything? People creating content feeds the AI machine too, another reason to encourage blogging

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

#234

Post by gibsonsmog »

simonw wrote: post #97
notepad0x90 wrote: post #92

There are just not enough ways to discover personal blogs. HN is a great source, but you'll notice over time there are always AskHN posts asking something like "What is a site like HN for..", and people trying to build HN clones. Reddit was good for a while for this, but hasn't been for a long time. I'm hoping people rediscover/reinvent slashdot.

If you blog I think it's really important to develop a habit of linking to other people's blogs. That's how blog discovery used to work back in the 200xs and it can still work effectively today.

Everyday we get a little closer to web rings and I'm here for it

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

#235

Post by sathyabhat »

cbzbc wrote: post #225
qouteall wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use Obsidian to edit markdown. Obsidian allows easy paste of images.

Is there a Obsidian -> Hugo/Zola/Jekyll thing that's relatively robust?

Quartz might be that. https://quartz.jzhao.xyz/

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

#236

Post by simonw »

the_gipsy wrote: post #199
simonw wrote: post #88

Here are some reasons to start a personal blog: 1. It's a great way to learn. Teaching something to someone else has always been the best learning tool, and writing about something with an audience in mind is an effective way to capture some of that value. 2. It can be a big boost in job hunting. As a hiring manager two of the most important questions I have about a potential candidate are: Can they code? Can they co…

Do you use AI to write content nowadays? Or to review and format it?

I don't let AI write for me. I have a "proof reader" which I use - it's a Claude project with these custom instructions:

> You are a proof reader for posts about to be published.

> 1. Identify for spelling mistakes and typos

> 2. Identify grammar mistakes

> 3. Watch out for repeated terms like "It was interesting that X, and it was interesting that Y"

> 4. Spot any logical errors or factual mistakes

> 5. Highlight weak arguments that could be strengthened

> 6. Make sure there are no empty or placeholder links

I do occasionally use an LLM to reformat data - "turn this screenshot into a Markdown list" kind of thing.

I had it write me an HTML price comparison table for this post: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/18/gemini-3/#pricing - here's how: https://chatgpt.com/share/6921b10b-0124-8006-9356-8e32f6335b... - I carefully checked the numbers before I published it!

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

#237

Post by stared »

lightveil wrote: post #151

the problem I always have with starting a personal blog is that-I want to write about my projects, but I also want to write about introspective life things. And I'm always fearful that introspective life things would detract (perhaps significantly, if they are too revealing) from employers/etc looking at me as a potential hire. This is not so much about politics (I don't find a strident need to blog about my politica…

Depends a lot on the context.

I mostly post tech things, but at some point I wanted to share a few thoughts about a touchy subject like dating. I had the same dilemma - the last thing I wanted was for it to backfire professionally. At that time I was a consultant and freelancer, so looking for a job wasn’t something I did every few years, but more on a continuous basis.

My girlfriend back then encouraged me to post under my name, as long as I was comfortable being asked about it and defending my words (I was, so I did).

The reception from friends was positive. To my surprise, it had a neutral to mildly positive professional impact, "this is a tech guy, but he has soft skills".

And as you can see, there are quite a few posts like that (side ideas, physical and mental health, relationships).

---

Of course, your mileage may vary. Tech is one thing, but for many jobs (especially government, public service, primary education) it might be different.

It also depends on the general norms within a country—what’s taboo, and how far you’re willing to cross it.

At the same time, when I’ve heard of someone being rejected due to their online presence, it was mostly not about the views themselves, but about how they were expressed. Raging hate might be off-putting—even to those who share a similar bias.

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

#238

Post by simonw »

usrbinenv wrote: post #209
topato wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty hefty accusation to level at one of the most prolific Ai/LLM bloggers on HN lol

If it's not an LLM, I guess the author spent too much time around them, because it totally reads like an LLM. And that's not a good thing.

Which bits read like an LLM?

I didn't do any "it's not X, it's Y" or other classic LLM tropes as far as I can tell.

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

#239

Post by voxleone »

devsda wrote: post #121
simonw wrote: post #88

Here are some reasons to start a personal blog: 1. It's a great way to learn. Teaching something to someone else has always been the best learning tool, and writing about something with an audience in mind is an effective way to capture some of that value. 2. It can be a big boost in job hunting. As a hiring manager two of the most important questions I have about a potential candidate are: Can they code? Can they co…

This is all true but I'm not sure about establishing credibility with a blog, especially when an LLM can help fudge the details. I like your idea of blogging about TILs. There are shallow posts about TILs(plenty on medium) and then there are posts that mention TILs along with specific gotchas they faced and workarounds on the topic. Those saved me hours of searching/debugging on couple of occasions and I'm glad that…

You are mostly right. But I suspect that a good writer will remain good [or even better] with LLM's. In my experience the bad ones are detected immediately.

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

#240

Post by efilife »

ksec wrote: post #142
simonw wrote: post #88

Here are some reasons to start a personal blog: 1. It's a great way to learn. Teaching something to someone else has always been the best learning tool, and writing about something with an audience in mind is an effective way to capture some of that value. 2. It can be a big boost in job hunting. As a hiring manager two of the most important questions I have about a potential candidate are: Can they code? Can they co…

My biggest problem so far is with cost. I dont like recurring fees. I could pay a one-time fee for say 100 pages and last an eternality ( or 50 years or something ). I also dont like subscription, and it has nothing to do with subscription fatigue, it is just the way I manage my money since before Youtube or Netflix took off. And so far I haven't seen any viable options. And right now I use HN comments as more like a…

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