Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next? • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by andai » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:35 AM UTC

sowbug wrote: post #48

arjie wrote: post #42

Are personal blogs back? My personal blog ten years ago (even twenty years ago) received a lot of direct traffic on all sorts of things from the primary search engines and so on. Nowadays, the only search engine that delivers any traffic to my site is Kagi! Looking back, I haven't changed my style of writing very much, so I suspect the reality is that I've just fallen behind in a comparative sense. There are much bet…

I assume that search engines these days don't care as much about showing results that won't make them money. Either you bought search ads, your site is showing ads from their network, or you're SOL.

Hmm, that's pretty rough. It kind of sounds like a search engine should be considered public infrastructure.

(Perhaps also the browser, email, etc? ;)

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

#52

Post by kazinator » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:42 AM UTC

Say, "personal" blogs being back wouldn't happen to have anything to do with being able to generate reams of text with little effort?

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

#53

Post by loktarogar » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:43 AM UTC

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.

I agree!

There's certainly a difference between making useful content for the love of it and making content because you think there's an opportunity to get something out of that (that could be money, but it could also just be appreciation or someone reading your work).

It's demoralising to not get any views on your hard work, and in this economic environment it sometimes feels more worth your time to do any other activity.

You may be the counter-proof to that and I enjoy your blog! But, also a lot of what makes your content useful is timing with depth and that's something that AI can't beat yet

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

#54

Post by monksy » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:48 AM UTC

julianlam wrote: post #4

Niche forums. Federated.

I can't wait till theres a good reddit federated clone.

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

#55

Post by NoboruWataya » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:57 AM UTC

The Gemini protocol, which has been posted here recently, is pretty good for reading personal and niche blogs. Yes, yes, I know you don't need Gemini for this, it is entirely possible from a technical perspective to host a minimalist personal blog over HTTP. But a great thing about Gemini is that there really isn't that much else on there, so the signal to noise ratio is higher. I check gemini://warmedal.se/~antenna/ pretty regularly and find some interesting posts there.

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

#56

Post by NoboruWataya » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 2:02 AM UTC

julianlam wrote: post #4

Niche forums. Federated.

I would love something that is close to phpBB but slightly more modern. Like, phpBB but with federation support and a clean API would be great. But most modern forum-like software is Reddit clones.

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

#57

Post by shevy-java » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 2:05 AM UTC

We have medium.com too. I hate that.

Blogging kind of was better in the past.

I also remember geocities. It was kind of cool.

Neocities unfortunately does not really capture that old spirit. It's just ... different.

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

#58

Post by chairmansteve » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 2:15 AM UTC

arjie wrote: post #42

Are personal blogs back? My personal blog ten years ago (even twenty years ago) received a lot of direct traffic on all sorts of things from the primary search engines and so on. Nowadays, the only search engine that delivers any traffic to my site is Kagi! Looking back, I haven't changed my style of writing very much, so I suspect the reality is that I've just fallen behind in a comparative sense. There are much bet…

You may not reach the masses, but there will be an audience.

I have an RSS feed of personal blogs which I really enjoy.

I also refuse to go to LiveNation type concerts. I only go to local musicians charging $10 at the door.

I don't even do it on principle. Corporate entertainment (including blogs) often feels formulaic to me. I find that Medium sucks the life out of good writers for some reason.

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

#59

Post by davidcollantes » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 2:20 AM UTC

arjie wrote: post #42

Are personal blogs back? My personal blog ten years ago (even twenty years ago) received a lot of direct traffic on all sorts of things from the primary search engines and so on. Nowadays, the only search engine that delivers any traffic to my site is Kagi! Looking back, I haven't changed my style of writing very much, so I suspect the reality is that I've just fallen behind in a comparative sense. There are much bet…

Your blog seems to be broken.

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

#60

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 2:23 AM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #43

FrasiertheLion wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue personal blogs are back and Substack is the medium of choice this time around

Substack to me seems to be 40% self-promotion or advertising a service, 40% long-form LinkedIn posts / AI slop, and the remaining 20% is behind a subscription with eventual freebies. Mostly professional writing. It’s far from being a new blogspot.

[deleted]