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Blogging Is Not Dead

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Re: Blogging Is Not Dead

#41

Post by qznc »

jakevoytko wrote: post #6

We're overly attached to a specific idea of a "blog". In practice, "web logging" never died, even if the specific blog format has diminished over time. Blogs are websites that host posts in chronological order, but defined in a very specific way that excludes your Facebook and Twitter. The difference isn't self-hosting - Blogger and Wordpress.com host your blog. I reckon the difference is aggregation. Facebook groups…

Blogs in the sense of "log your web browsing" is either niche as ever or more popular as ever due to like/share buttons.

Re: Blogging Is Not Dead

#42

Post by llbeansandrice »

rhacker wrote: post #15

Get out of the software development blogging bubble. Spend 3 minutes looking at each of the following: Look at woodworking blogs, recipe blogs, gardening blogs. One thing you'll note is that those are all filled with a shit fuck ton of ads and are completely unusable. I know this because my wife wades through that stuff and the only way she can is by using a blocker. I don't use a blocker because very few of the soft…

Those aren't blogs, those are businesses. They have a lot more in common with other websites that use content as a motivator for ad revenue. More like awful news websites than just someone writing articles.

I guess it's semantics but I've never considered recipe "blogs" as anything near like rachelbythebay or other plain programming blogs.

Re: Blogging Is Not Dead

#43

Post by PerilousD »

The original article was crap since the author stated "spent an hour trying to find blog and ...nothing" Any reasonable response would have been an hour trying to figure out where the "return" key was is NOT the same thing as an hour spent searching. Blog, by folks that don't give a crap about Googles SEO requirements exist, have existed and will still exist in the future.

Re: Blogging Is Not Dead

#44

Post by gonehome »

foob wrote: post #14

If you want to see more high quality blog posts, then I highly recommend taking actions to help promote and encourage them. Sign up for a mailing list or subscribe to an RSS feed when you find a blog that consistently produces quality material. Post new or old content on Hacker News, Reddit, Lobsters, Twitter, and other communities where you think they would be a good fit. Upvote and retweet quality content that you…

It would be neat to have an HN like place that restricted posts to only blog like content (where the rules are defined in some way to try and prevent marketing blogs/ad-farms).

A subreddit could be the place for this, but it might be tricky to kickstart a community with interesting content. Then if successful could move it to its own community somehow (similar to CMV).

I created one here: https://www.reddit.com/r/hnblogs/

There might be a way to set up rules that lead to interesting posts, if the content is restricted to bloggers posting their own content it could get more attention than competing for space on HN (as long as there are people there to comment).

Happy to open up wiki editing or make suggested changes. [Edit]: I made an announcement post there for suggestions.

Also if you have a personal blog and a favorite post - you can be the first one to submit something, though I might be the only one that ends up reading it :-). [Edit: Anyone reading this please do! There are a decent amount of people clicking the above link so it'd be neat if there were posts that got some traction).

It almost feels like needing to revert to the pre-search engine era when there were pages of curated links to interesting content.

One issue with HN is since it's general links of interesting content it can be hard for personal blogs to compete, maybe a focused community could make it easier.

Someone posted a first blog post, I added one too.

Re: Blogging Is Not Dead

#45

Post by chc »

rhacker wrote: post #15

Get out of the software development blogging bubble. Spend 3 minutes looking at each of the following: Look at woodworking blogs, recipe blogs, gardening blogs. One thing you'll note is that those are all filled with a shit fuck ton of ads and are completely unusable. I know this because my wife wades through that stuff and the only way she can is by using a blocker. I don't use a blocker because very few of the soft…

I use recipe blogs all the time. I'd guess it's just a matter of choosing the right ones, because they do have ads, but they're hardly unusable — they're better than, say, my local CBS affiliate.

Re: Blogging Is Not Dead

#46

Post by djsumdog »

I still had that previous article the author references in another tab[2].

Yes, use an RSS Reader. RSS is not dead[0]. Hackernews often has blog posts. If you see a post you like, go to the main page and see if you like any of the other posts. If it's a blog you think you want to follow, subscribe to it. If, after a few months, you find none of the articles are interesting and often mark them all read, then just unsubscribe.

If you blog, cross-promote it on Reddit, Twitter, your FB page (although if you don't use Twitter/FB often, it'll be just a trickle of clicks[1], but it's better than nothing), etc. Try not to use another platforms just to promote you. If you see blog posts you like, be sure to promote them!

Maybe use one of your RSS reader apps just to dump one of those huge github aggregated blog lists with like 500 tech and personal blogs. You can scroll through it when you're bored and see if there's anything interesting and mark the rest as read.

Maybe setup your own Solr server to index every blog you come across just for the hell of it? (I've been meaning to do this forever!) The big search engines aren't good at showing us blogs, so maybe it's up to us to find and promote them?

[0]: https://battlepenguin.com/tech/rss-the-original-federated-so...

[1]: https://battlepenguin.com/tech/facebook-and-the-silent-bob-e...

[2]: http://tttthis.com/blog/if-i-could-bring-one-thing-back-to-t...

Re: Blogging Is Not Dead

#47

Post by ImaCake »

Hoasi wrote: post #19

Blogging is not dead. It is just unevenly discoverable. And that creates an interesting problem that is still waiting for a solution.

>It is just unevenly discoverable.

I suspect this makes me selfish, but I like it like this. It is fun finding out of the way blogs and being part of a tiny audience following an interesting but rarely discussed topic.

Re: Blogging Is Not Dead

#48

Post by aSplash0fDerp »

xwdv wrote: post #7

Blogging is not dead, it's just being rapidly made obsolete by commenting. Comments are everywhere. Total volume of comments on the internet compared to blogs is larger by several orders of magnitude. Readership is up, everything has comments. Comments don't care about SEO, or money, or fame, that makes them one of the purest forms of content you can find on the internet. You could argue that some sites have people c…

Good points!

When we start seeing the proliferation of boutique networks (with satellite and CBRS bands), I think forums, blogs, BBS`s and the real Internet gold (comments, as you stated) will find a new canvas to graffiti.

Now that everything is under attack on Internet 1, its the perfect time to take the 1% of valuable content and setup shop elsewhere, leaving the "ephemeral" content behind (they`ll make more).

Perhaps its a western culture thing, but the easiest way to move a mountain of digital/analog fecal matter is to walk away from it.

Re: Blogging Is Not Dead

#49

Post by ImaCake »

dnissley wrote: post #27

The blog discovery story is terrible, which I think is the only thing that would make someone say that blogging is dead. Anyone know of any good solutions for this? I've been kicking around an idea about manually associating blogs to twitter accounts, and then using twitter follows to create a graph for discovery purposes.

The problem with any automated method is it is subject to hijacking by people who are interested in money.

I think the best thing to do is to return to manual link referals. There are plenty of bloggers who will link to other blogs throughout their articles, or post articles with explicit lists of blogs they like. Good, interesting, blogs will rise to the top by being linked a lot.

Re: Blogging Is Not Dead

#50

Post by ImaCake »

MattGaiser wrote: post #25
JoshTriplett wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a reason you can sell a Reddit account with a ton of karma and activity for a decent buck. What does "a decent buck" amount to, these days? How much does it take to get people to sell their reputation to an unethical marketing firm?

$16-$20. https://www.playerup.com/accounts/redditaccount/ Not a lot for Westerners, but that is a week of wages in a place like Ghana. Decent pay for re-posting popular content.

I think that is just enough to make it worthwhile even for a poor American. If you can coordinate and plan ahead a little you would break minimum wage.
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