Ask HN: Why don't you have a blog?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22910532

by jlelse • 6 years ago

31 25 6 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Many Hacker News readers and contributors have the technical skills to run their own blog and post their opinions. But instead they prefer to use Twitter or other social networks. Why is this so? Is it the effort?

kgraves• 6 years ago

...But instead they prefer to use Twitter or other social networks. Why is this so? Is it the effort?

Discovery. Go to where your audience is.

It is much much easier on platforms such as Twitter, Medium, (Substack?) etc, not so much on your own site and blog.

You can "get to market", garner an audience and submit a post quicker on these platforms.

speedgoose• 6 years ago

Before I gave up with my blog, many years ago, it had very few readers unless I was doing SEO bullshit or I was spending hours actively promoting it.

In the beginning the effort was fine because it was fun. I even developed it from scratch in Rails, it was the time of these "write a blog with rails in 5 minutes" articles (it took me more time to have something I liked). Blogs were also very popular and you had communities of bloggers. But when social networks replaced blogs, people stopped using RSS feeds or simply visiting blogs.

SStanley• 6 years ago

I don't thank blogging is over cause it is currently the best way to explain/understand a long concept, Twitter is, in my opinion juste for quick info related to the present

I expect it to change in the futur, Medium or Quora seem to do a really good job to understand concept but in my opinion there is something meeting ?

I had a blog back in the day, I create it to mostly for free lead, but it take too much time to have effect and when you got it you can decrease in rank, losing all the work you made

davidajackson• 6 years ago

I build apps and maintain a blog for whatever app I'm currently working on. For people that might want me to contract, I show them an app on the store I've worked on, and that works well for me. Will probably make a personal blog at some point but haven't had time.

krapp• 6 years ago

I used to have a blog, and I miss it, but I realized long ago that no one gives a shit about anything I have to say. Still have a domain, there's nothing on it, though.

Sometimes I think I'd like to start one up again but, you know, people expect blogs to be put out by experts now - I just did it because I enjoy writing but there's no point if no one is reading, and the people who do expect more from you than you're willing or able to give.

eb0la• 6 years ago

My wordpress blog was hacked sometime after my daughter was born about two years ago. Didn't have time to update it so I had to shut it down. I'll blog again. Just don't know when ;-)

csixty4• 6 years ago

A long time ago, I had a personal blog and posted to it regularly. Nobody read it. I rarely got comments.

Some of my wife's friends wanted to read it, so one of them imported the RSS feed into Livejournal and I discovered it one day. Surprise, there were lots of comments on "my" LJ account and people upset I wasn't answering their questions.

That was a lesson to me that owning the place I publish content isn't as important as being where my audience is, at least if I want people to read it. At the time¸ it was Livejournal. Today, it's social media.

non-entity• 6 years ago

Cant think of a good name / domain and no idea how get readers anyway.

qppo• 6 years ago

I don't want an extremely public record of my personal opinions or thoughts today, because I know they're going to change tomorrow.

8bitsrule• 6 years ago

IME, blogs that develop a readership worth the time and effort (up to the author, really) are devoted to one topic or a narrow range of related topics. I'm sure we all know of a few. But people's time is limited, and competition for their attention is fierce.

If -who- you reach is more important than -how many- you reach, then blogs might be the right route. I'd bet that Socrates was seldom surrounded by a crowd. Blogging doesn't require many technical skills, but it does demand that what we say is valued by those we can only hope will be back ... and that they have a way to contribute.

alexmingoia• 6 years ago

Twitter is a blog.

quickthrower2• 6 years ago

A microblogging platform

cik• 6 years ago

Ultimately I prefer sharing my thoughts, opinions and information with people who are part of my life, as opposed to the internet as a whole.

psyclobe• 6 years ago

My own life is stressful enough, without the all seeing criticizing eye of a world audience.

throwaway180118• 6 years ago

Anxiety to publish

jlelse• 6 years ago

I responded to some of the comments in my latest blog post: https://jlelse.blog/posts/why-no-blog/

anotheryou• 6 years ago

It's unrealistic I'll gather a bigger readership without much effort. For comparison: I have 6 twitter followers I think...

Raed667• 6 years ago

I had one, no one read it. low numbers compared to effort made me stop writing in it.

burntoutfire• 6 years ago

I don't think I have anything particularly interesting or novel enough to say, and I don't want to add to the deluge of mediocre, self-promoting crap that the already Internet is... I hope to soon (1-2 years from now) have enough time to pursue interesting and novel side projects - I could see myself documenting them on a blog then.

karmakaze• 6 years ago

I posted to a blog for a while. I didn't like the disorganized one-off isolated bits of content it produced. With enough content a word cloud could be useful but wasn't what I wanted to make.

Now I post to a personal GitBook site which is more of a personal wiki than a blog. I like the output. I wish I'd started this way from early in my online-era career. Each post aims to either be in story form, or a to-the-point how-to which I know I'll be referring to and trust.

Zelphyr• 6 years ago

I don’t have a blog or Twitter or Facebook anymore and I’m fine with it. I never really got anything out of it. In fact, it was all just me complaining which doesn’t do anyone any good. I’m happier not having those channels.

askafriend• 6 years ago

I would rather engage in discussion rather than publish monologues.

This is why I like HN/Twitter/etc.

akater• 6 years ago

• I don't want to admin a server.

• I don't understand what does it mean “to own a domain name”, what kind of ID is it tied to.

• I'd have to write a spam-resilient js-free https-free comments system. It'd take time, it'd have to be based on PGP, and in the end nobody would use it.

So I just worship my Fediverse Instance Admin Deity instead, for now.

softwaredoug• 6 years ago

On my blog I frankly don’t want/expect comments. It’s intentionally a solitary space for just me. But here it’s like being at an interesting party.

OTOH a blog is more SEO friendly, and a better signpost to leave for others on the broader Internet whereas these comments are temporal.

The blog is suited for longer form content with visuals, headers, and structure. The hacker news comment is suited for short and sweet insights

lappet• 6 years ago

I have a blog but I am unsure how to share & receive feedback in 2020. The online world seems to be trending towards micro-blogging, photos and videos and I worry if people take the time to read long form blog posts.

Ask HN: Why don't you have a blog?

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