In
trying to think about what kind of blog it is I was writing here
myself, I was thinking about what kinds of blogs existed, and what
kind I liked and also just wondering... "What is a blog?" (*squints
eyes thoughtfully and scratches non-existent goatee*)
- There are news blogs. Example: gigaom.com They post probably 4-8
times / day. There are several writers working on it. This is about
finding the news in a genre (tech in GigaOM's case) and providing
latest news + unique commentary. This is not that type of
blog.
- There are personal blogs. Examples: dashes.com (Anil Dash) or darrenbarefoot.com
(Darren Barefoot) These generally have a theme/locus of knowledge
but they are also more broad than news sites. And, some of them,
will toss in personal tidbits. This is where I started in my
understanding of what blogs were: they must include personal
tidbits. I find, on the whole, that I don't read the personal
tidbits entries. Even one of the tech blogs I enjoy that is
relatively popular, who does include bits about his kids (whose
names are Fufu and Zanzibar - which adds to the interest somewhat)
and whose commentary and thought on his personal life is good...
unless the topic is interesting to me (e.g. when he reviewed the PVR/DVRs
he uses), I don't read them. This is not that type of blog.
- There are corporate blogs / podcasts. Examples: Stanford's
excellent Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders podcast series (a
series of lectures from a variety of tech entrepreneurs), Adaptive Path's corporate
blog (they are a information design & architecture
consulting outfit and post in that sphere) These often have "about
the company" posts: this person has published a new book, our
latest event is selling out, staff changes. That's in addition to
informative posts about their area of expertise. It's kind of
like a personal blog, but it's what the firm would write if the
firm were writing a personal blog - oh the circuitous-ness of this
sentence - you understand what I mean.
- Unpublished Articles. Example: Paul Graham On...
well, nearly everything tech of interest to him I don't know if
this is so much a category of blogging as something that looks like
a blog but really isn't. (First articles are lifts from a 1993
book, many are lifts from talks given.) I don't know a lot of
people in this category. This category can tend towards being more
"articles that don't happen to be published on other channels" or
things that are published, but not this specific collection.
- UPDATE: Link Blogs. Example: Steve Rubel's
Micropersuasion. These are generally not just links, but often
posts are just links. This can be good, but I generally am not fond
of these. I've toyed with this idea, and I try to make a point of
adding links at the end of posts where it makes sense: this is what
the web is about: being able to keep digging and follow links
(links are the "HT" in HTML).
This may not be rocket-science and the categories are somewhat
artificial: the lines are very fuzzy and can be "fuzzed" by anyone
at anytime ("I'm going to start a personal blog that is like a news
blog and posts 4-8 times a day on my activities and I'll hire 3
writers to cover the story of me."). The point was to try to get a
handle on what kinds of blogs exist and what attributes they have,
so I could pick and choose what is right for me and my topics. What
categories did I miss? My Posts I also looked at some
of my posts that I think are good or better from a "source" sense
(not quality of writing or interest-level of topic), trying to find
out "how" I might blog best. I think the ones that synthesize
information (particularly from disparate sources, or unusual
combinations [e.g. applying free-market history to hiring web
designers]), often tackling things that might be hard to understand
and explaining them in simple terms (these are often more enjoyable
to me as they are often moments of learning of my own: I was
mentally understanding a concept and explaining it made my own
learning better). I think 2 blog posts of mine that are
representative of this:
We'll see where this thinking leads in the days to come.