If You Don't Have Something Relevant to Say, Don't Say Anything at All?
Sometimes, I'm swamped with work. Other times I'm swamped with real life. And still other times, I just need a break from the computer.
And yet...
... there's always that unspoken obligation to blog.
But why?
Blogging Dodos?
Since the advent of Twitter, much buzz has been expended on the decreased rate of blogging.
"If I can connect with people in 'real time,'" so the theory goes, "why should I spend more time blogging about what I just Twittered?"
(Context, for one. Evergreen-ness, for another. But I digress...)
If we can agree in principle that the minutae of our day is best left to Twitter, IM and email, what then is there left to blog about? Items of relevance, of course. In fact, that's all anyone SHOULD be blogging about anymore: concepts that are too large for Twitter's 140 character limit.
The funny thing is, once you get used to breaking your thought process down to Twitter-sized morsels, that pool of topics is a lot smaller than you might think.
Justified and Recent
As I've mentioned before, I get upset when the bloggers I read regularly don't update for a day or two. Judging by the ebb and flow of my own subscriber base, so do my readers. A couple days of radio silence in this ADD-addled attention economy is the kiss of death for some audiences who need insight AND immediacy from their punditry.
But should I blog just because I haven't blogged much lately? Or should I wait until there's something extremely topical AND worthwhile to blog about? What's more important: the quality or the frequency?
What do you need? Regularity or relevance? (Presuming "both" is not possible, of course...)
And yet...
... there's always that unspoken obligation to blog.
But why?
Blogging Dodos?
Since the advent of Twitter, much buzz has been expended on the decreased rate of blogging.
"If I can connect with people in 'real time,'" so the theory goes, "why should I spend more time blogging about what I just Twittered?"
(Context, for one. Evergreen-ness, for another. But I digress...)
If we can agree in principle that the minutae of our day is best left to Twitter, IM and email, what then is there left to blog about? Items of relevance, of course. In fact, that's all anyone SHOULD be blogging about anymore: concepts that are too large for Twitter's 140 character limit.
The funny thing is, once you get used to breaking your thought process down to Twitter-sized morsels, that pool of topics is a lot smaller than you might think.
Justified and Recent
As I've mentioned before, I get upset when the bloggers I read regularly don't update for a day or two. Judging by the ebb and flow of my own subscriber base, so do my readers. A couple days of radio silence in this ADD-addled attention economy is the kiss of death for some audiences who need insight AND immediacy from their punditry.
But should I blog just because I haven't blogged much lately? Or should I wait until there's something extremely topical AND worthwhile to blog about? What's more important: the quality or the frequency?
What do you need? Regularity or relevance? (Presuming "both" is not possible, of course...)
Labels: blogging, communication, social networking, society, twitter
posted by Justin Kownacki at
5:18 PM
2 Comments:
Relevance, definitely. Not necessarily mind-blowing philosophy or breaking news, but something worth mentally chewing on, if only for a second.
However, I'm also probably more loyal than the normal blog-reader... I've got to get burned with a No Update several times before I am annoyed enough to stay away. ...and even then I'll check back in a week or two.
By
righteoustetris, at 9:03 AM
I mostly blog to entertain myself, really. Always have. But I've definitely taken another look on what I say now I know people actually read these things...
By
Sorgatron, at 4:37 PM
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