Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

postary.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 75 posts

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#61

Post by robryan »

jseliger wrote: post #60
jonnathanson wrote: post #36

Very spot-on description of the mania-to-blah mindset that does in 95% of blogs. I'd also add to the mix: 1) Unrealistic Expectations. Most people have no idea what "success" really looks like for a blog. They assume that, if six months have gone by and they're not getting 100,000+ followers, they've failed. Another unrealistic expectation is what I'd call an overly generous self-assessment: the blogger in question o…

2) Lack of Patience. Building a successful following is rarely an overnight journey. Some blogs take years to find their footing, and years more to find their audiences. I would add one more point: most people don't fundamentally have a writer's disposition. Writing is hard (if it weren't, we wouldn't have so many professional writers, books on writing, and classes on writing). Having something to say and the means t…

It is much easier to say something on here, facebook or Twitter because it can just purely be the thought you are having.

Once you want to translate that into a blog you really have to flesh it out and ideally read other sources and reference them. We you don't have to but I feel less comfortable just putting something down as opposed to really getting into the idea. Unfortunately all this takes time making me less likely to start it in the first place.

edw519 has mentioned this a bit, very prolific poster that is very well regarded on HN and has a lot to say but struggled to really do it in the blogging medium.

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#62

Post by Aga »

mol2103 wrote: post #48
cbs wrote: post #22

I like this idea, I've had a thing or two I wanted to write on, but didn't want to setup a blog. I've actually thought of building something similar myself. So, excited about this website, I clicked on "Write a post". Oh, you want to tie to my twitter account. Nevermind.

Why not connect your Twitter account? We won't post anything on your behalf...perhaps we should have made that clearer :/

For what it's worth, the need for a Twitter account was a no-go for me too..

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#64

Post by mitchm »

willpower101 wrote: post #63

The site reminds me of squidoo. I kind of wonder why I can't click on someone's username and see everything they've written. What if you feel like writing a lot on postary? Does it just stay disjointed?

Seeing an index of all the posts someone made is a good idea, it just didn't make the cut for the first iteration.

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#65

Post by mkr-hn »

bad_user wrote: post #46
jonnathanson wrote: post #36

Very spot-on description of the mania-to-blah mindset that does in 95% of blogs. I'd also add to the mix: 1) Unrealistic Expectations. Most people have no idea what "success" really looks like for a blog. They assume that, if six months have gone by and they're not getting 100,000+ followers, they've failed. Another unrealistic expectation is what I'd call an overly generous self-assessment: the blogger in question o…

I disagree with the 90% / 10% thing. I was a very active blogger in my native language at some point, but I had only like 50 subscribers and maybe 300 page views in a good week. I then switched to English and wrote only a dozen of articles or so. One of them was hard to write, basically a HOW-TO article who's implementation I had to write and test before I wrote the article. I also work full-time for a living and it…

Not everyone has a style that's suited for short or less thought out posts. I get about the same engagement with 500 words and 50, so I don't worry too much about it unless it's something controversial.

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#66

Post by tsotha »

Frankly, I don't understand why anyone would spend a lot of time on a blog. Well, I take that back. The top .0000001% of bloggers make a lot of money. But for everyone else, well, writing (good writing, anyway) is hard work.

If you just dash off whatever comes to mind nobody will bother reading what you've written, so you're wasting your time. If you put a lot of time and energy into your posts then at some point you've put in the same amount of effort it would have taken to write a book, but you have less to show for it.

I guess if you just enjoy writing a blog it's fine. But like any hobby it will get old eventually, so it doesn't surprise me so many are abandoned.

The blogs that seem to be successful over the long run are either news-aggregation type affairs, where it's mostly just links with a pithy joke or two thrown in, or they're single subject blogs with multiple people sharing the load. It's just too much work for one person to generate enough original content to hold the attention of a regular reader base.

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#67

Post by Miso_Vegan »

kb101 wrote: post #15

This is a great concept... I think where it could differentiate itself is by aggregating posts by topic. If I'm searching some topic on the web, I often come across blogs that are out of date or orphaned, and they might provide me with some of the information or links I am looking for, but not all. If Postary lets me find several such blogs on its site, organized into blog threads by topic, then it fills a need on bo…

Really like this idea!

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#68

Post by Miso_Vegan »

I'm curious as to how people are defining "success" in these comments. It seems to revolve around traffic, and perhaps that implies something (advertising). Me, I guess I define it as having said something that starts/contributes to a conversation, and that an actual conversation happens. But how do you define it?

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#69

Post by hugopeixoto »

mol2103 wrote: post #48
cbs wrote: post #22

I like this idea, I've had a thing or two I wanted to write on, but didn't want to setup a blog. I've actually thought of building something similar myself. So, excited about this website, I clicked on "Write a post". Oh, you want to tie to my twitter account. Nevermind.

Why not connect your Twitter account? We won't post anything on your behalf...perhaps we should have made that clearer :/

This is why (in my case):

You asked for permissions to * See who you follow, and follow new people. * Update your profile. * Post Tweets for you.

This is a no-no for me. I believe you can specify that you want read-only access, which would solve my problem.

Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

#70

Post by indrax »

reinhardt wrote: post #57
bad_user wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the 90% / 10% thing. I was a very active blogger in my native language at some point, but I had only like 50 subscribers and maybe 300 page views in a good week. I then switched to English and wrote only a dozen of articles or so. One of them was hard to write, basically a HOW-TO article who's implementation I had to write and test before I wrote the article. I also work full-time for a living and it…

Strange, you bring up the fact that you switched to English and then completely ignore it as a potential factor in the conclusion.

I think it was relevant in that he was starting from scratch with a new audience.
Post reply on HN