How to write a better weblog (2002) | Hacker News Reader

How to write a better weblog (2002)

alistapart.com

52 pointshenning14 comments

I hope blogging won't disappear. It was really good for a while, when we still had blogrolls. Now it's all walled gardens, that make it even easier to share and comment. I kind of think it's time for the pendulum to swing back.

What do you mean by walled gardens? Is not blogging still open, with anyone being able to start a blog, and in most cases anyone read it as well?

If I had to guess, I think he's lamenting the relative death of blogs as indie publications of sorts (with novel designs and formats) and the migration of people to tools like Twitter and Facebook which are basically glorified, controlled forums.

I'm convinced the former type of blog has significantly gone away, but merely the marginal fringe of people who don't care too much about format seem to have swung away from them.

I doubt they will disappear. Blogs are perfect for anyone that wants to write online. Microblogging, or whatever, doesn't cut it. Twitter messages are too short. No, blogs won't be going anywhere. I believe they've become a permanent part of Web culture. Remember when Web sites had "guestbooks?" That functionality has essentially been replaced by comments on blogs.

Interestingly his blog is no longer online: http://www.0format.com/

Was going to make the exact same point. Good name, too. I think blogging is something we do until our time can't scale with it due to the success of the blog, very few times does the blogging itself carry it's worth past some lofty modicum of success.

I especially liked the point about pith. From what I have seen the mark of a good writer is the ability to say a lot with just a few words. It is all to easy to ramble on and on, without getting the point across.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Irony is the soul of wit.

"My liege, and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief: your noble son is mad: Mad call I it; for, to define true madness, What is't but to be nothing else but mad? But let that go."

Ah, but it is a proverb in its less nuanced sense all the same.

A (non-compsci) friend recently asked me for advice on setting up a blog, however having never written one myself I wasn't of much help. I'd be interested to know which sites/hosting services people recommend and why. The friend was an economist/financier in case that's relevant.

Average person: Tumblr. The easiest way to blog isn't just their tagline, it's also true.

Average person who is a little geekier: Posterous. The easiest way to blog that also has some more anorak-friendly features.

Unhealthy interest in politics: WordPress/Typepad/Blogspot, because that's where most of the other politically opinionated people tend to blog. The hosted services, not the ones you install on your own server. That way someone else has to worry about security updates, maintaining performance, etc, and your friend doesn't have to learn anything about servers just to be able to write.

Programmer blogs: the latest fashion seems to be using github as a blog (e.g. raganwald) or else using a git-based blogging engine and deploying the blog to heroku (e.g. with toto) http://www.rubyinside.com/deploy-blog-with-toto-and-heroku-2...

I love this quote:

No matter what your audience size, you ought to write as if your readership consisted of paid subscribers whose subscriptions were perpetually about to expire.

Presumably that advice applies here on HN as well.

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