Reluctant Blogger

Credit: Gaping Void

So here’s the deal.

I surf Techmeme semi-daily, as does nearly everyone else in tech-blog land. If you’re not already using it - start. Gabe’s subtitle “Page A1 of the Tech Blogosphere” is dead on. Buzztracker and Tailrank would be other alternatives, but I’m less familiar with those.

Part of being a real blogger, it seems to me, is putting yourself out there in a way that people can find you - in other words - participating in “The Conversation.” This means commenting semi-frequently on the stories of the day. (It’s also, not coincidentally, part of Jason’s recommended formulation for reaching the “A-list”. Whether or not that’s a worthwhile goal is a topic I’ll leave for exploring another day.)

Anyway - one of the side effects of this dynamic is that a lot of people post to their blogs on Techmeme-related topics without really having much of anything to say. Which seems pretty lame.

My solution, such as it is, is to own up.

I remember a radio announcer from when I was a kid who used to tell these really long stories which always would up with the punchline “…and all YOU need to know…” so I have in mind something similar - - I’m going to do the occasional roundup post, but not try and pretend it’s something else. The idea will be to get any interested reader up to speed on the issue in 50 words or fewer, with the most relevant links embedded. I get to stay up to speed, and ping the blogosphere occaisionally so that my participation registers - - but at the same time don’t add paragraphs of filler that aren’t actually novel or adding any real value. The last thing the blogosphere needs is more white noise.

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Note to Self: wiki stub AsLongAsItNeedsToBeAndNoLonger still needs completion.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 at 2:47 am and is filed under , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.