Deep Thoughts By John Q. Blogger?
by Kevin
Pardon me while I catch up to some comments on a post I had awhile back. This may get a little self-referential (bloggers talking about themselves talking about others referencing them, etc.) so pardon that too.
Last week, I posted a note on the impending retirement of Paul Musgrave and made some comments regarding blogging in general. Paul was leaving blogging behind for now because he wanted to focus on study and reflection not the hectic and often shallow world of blogging. A few of my fellow bloggers thought I was perhaps a bit heavy handed. Spudlets weighed in and so did Mark Byron. Both are not so sure this statement is accurate:
Blogging is not conducive to serious study and reflection. Unless you don’t mind not being read by anybody or you are already famous and can get viewers that way. The only way to get consistent readers is to post regularly. This makes it hard to read and study, for example, and still have a life.
Spud offers his own two cents:
Spud’s 2 cents:
I will have to gently disagree with Kevin’s assessment of the “only way to get consistent readers is to post regularly.” A formula for getting consistent readers:
1. Be able to write posts with something resembling standard English (or whatever language happens to be your native tongue) so that people can understand the thought you are trying to communicate.
2. Post on stuff that interests you.
3. Find others who are like-minded, and leave comments or e-mails to them and develop relationships.
4. Post when you want to on things that you have at least a semi-strong opinion or interest. Posting a couple times a week is helpful to maintain traffic. If that gets to be too much of a chore, then maybe blogging is not for you.
I don’t disagree with Spudlet’s points but I wasn’t really focused on the consistent part so much as “readers.” That is why I offered the caveat “Unless you don’t mind not being read by anybody.” Obviously this was an over-exaggeration and a generalization but it remains true in my book. If your interest lies in connecting to people and trying to find and improve your writing “voice” then intermittent blogging might work for you. Heck you might even enjoy doing a lot of research and thinking and posting long thought provoking articles on your blog. But for the most part blogs are not designed for or used in this manner. Instead they are more reactive in that they react to and comment on subjects and issues that are in the public sphere. Combine this with the fact that most people find it frustrating to put a lot of work and energy into something that is read by very few people makes for a high ratio of ranters and linkers to thinkers. And lastly, physical reality imposes limits as well. If you don’t have a day job with a lot of free time or a built in knowledge base, you will have a hard time competing with those that do. In my case I can only read and collect blogging material during breaks and lunch at work. When I get home I have certain tasks that can only be ignored for so long (cooking, cleaning, bills, walking dogs, etc.) which places further time constraints. Then if I want to read books or magazine articles that takes up more time; and the more serious the material the more time and attention it takes. Throw all this together and you have a system not conducive to serious study and reflection. If you have a job or personal situation that exempts you from some of this, you have an advantage. If you have a great deal of discipline and don’t sleep a lot, you also have an advantage. These types are not the rule they are the exception.
Mark Bryon also demurs slightly:
I think you can have serious thought in a blog. There’s an old saying in blogdom that there are two basic classes-linkers and thinkers. Some of the good thinkers may only post every other day, but have something interesting to say.
Again, I don’t disagree with Mark. I think you can have serious thought on a blog. Mark certainly produces it and I try to stumble upon it once in a awhile but what I said was: “Blogging is not conducive to serious study and reflection.” I stand by that statement. Do people rise above the challenges and do so? Sure, but the medium is more conducive to rapid fire opinion and commentary than it is to study and reflection.
Mark likens blogging to publishing:
Blogs aren’t newspapers. When they’re merely from-the-hip opinion, they’re a one-man op-ed page. When they’re better-thought-out essays, they’re more like a good on-line magazine.
This probably a good analogy but it also makes the point: some people do this for a living. It is hard to compete with magazines and professional writers in the serious study and reflection category as academics, writers, and lawyers, to name a few professions have the advantage in time, knowledge, and name recognition.
None of this should be construed as inherently wrong or bad. Blogs are many things to many people; if it works for you and your readers great. But in my personal experience their is a built in tension between serious thought and blogging. This is not revolutionary as most things in life move against serious study and reflection. If Paul is seeking deeper things and he can’t get that via blogs then I am happy to see him choose to put blogging aside for a time. Me, I am just bringing what I have to the table. As long as I feel it is “working” I’ll keep at it.
Kevin,
Sorry to have missed your original post; Josh just pointed it out to me (as you can imagine, it’s difficult to blogsurf from Rome).
I of course agree with you. While somebody like Lileks or Jeff Cooper, or Brad DeLong or Josh Claybourn, may have the time, the expertise, and the talent to put out a readable and original blog daily, for the rest of us it’s nearly impossible. Especially for someone likes me, who wants to contribute new knowledge, blogging is a difficult calling.
Blogs will probably branch out into two main types: people who blog for friends and family, and people who blog for tens of thousands. There will be some sites in the middle, but the reward structure isn’t clearly there to support midscale blogs given the enticements of the real world.
Thanks for the post back. My intent previously was to elevate the social, rather than mental, rewards of blogging, where people would not have known each other by any other means except by blogging. This social experiment still fascinates me, and I will be curious to see how history judges it in the future. I don’t think the blogosphere will be as polar as Paul proposes, but I guess it’s a matter of perspective. For some of those “midscale” blogs, the real world is the blogosphere, and a chance to be heard, read and appreciated for your thoughts can be quite a natural “buzz”.
I’d like to think that blogging holds the middle ground between IM/chat rooms and “serious” news/journal sites. This is where you run the range of occasional bloggers read by a couple of folks (if any) to the “A-list” thousands-of-hits-a-day titans. I congratulate you on your recent success from some “A-list” link love, and hope it will help you through the times when the hitmeter may seem like it’s standing still. While some bloggers, myself included, will say the hitmeter does not matter all that much to them, we still check it out and get a little excited when a day happens to be above average.
Read your deep thoughts and agree with your theme. Don’t agree with the tenet that if one does this for a living it is hard to compete with the professional academics, writers, lawyers etc. Most of the professionals I read or listen to haven’t done any reasearch, don’t have an original cognitive process, aren’t aware that words mean something and are generally repeating what they heard at the last gathering of their cookie cutter friends. I for one hope they keep it up. Gonna start my own Blog someday and will need them for material. God bless’em. Git some & Take no prisoners!