Blogger Corvida wrote an excellent post yesterday entitled “The Repetition of the Blogosphere” in which she lamented the repetitive conversations and innovation plateau in the [tech] blogging world.
In her post, she verbalized a sentiment familiar to many of us:
Either I had nothing to say about the subject, or what I was thinking had already been said. There’s no point in rehashing a point just for the sake of saying something different. This is how I’ve been feeling lately.
This seems to be a common problem as of late, as also echoed by Robert Scoble in one of his best pieces yet, “Has/How/Why Tech Blogging has Failed You.” Even though I can’t compare my amateur experiences to their professional ones, I can definitely relate; for me, though, it’s a little bit different.
Blogging doesn’t quite feel like content creation
I started up andydesoto.com for one simple reason: I enjoy being creative, tackling nonstandard problems, and producing and sharing content and material with the people around me. However, unlike creating viral YouTube videos or groovy indie tunes, blogging is much more subtle in that it focuses on the written word rather than something more immediately glamorous.
I think part of what can occasionally make the blogging experience less rewarding is that writing about a niche topic, whether politics, technology, food, or otherwise, is often an exercise in finely treading a line between content creation and mere content commentary. When we spend too much time creating metacontent, that is, content about content, things start to feel much less rewarding for us.
I think in the tech world, the danger of this metacontent is that tech bloggers rarely are the ones that are creating the primary source content. Personally, I think that if I had the requisite technical coding or design skills, for instance, I would be creating iPhone applications instead of merely writing about them.
How do we make news?
The big question is this: how do we make news, rather than just write about it? Corvida and I had a brief exchange in the comments section where she suggested writing about something new, being a “discussion starter,” but I wonder if that’s enough (or, even, if that would be successful).
I think part of the secret might lie in some of the mobile blogging tools and utilities that are slowly being integrated into our lifestyles. Scoble’s massive repository of Qik interviews, for instance, provide a humanness and accessibility that feels much grander than mere words on a page. Perhaps synthesizing a wider array of multimedia into coverage and commentary would make for a more rewarding experience.
Your thoughts?
Perhaps this is what separates the blogging ‘men from the boys,’ so to speak; what differentiates the truly great minds from those in the middle of the pack. I guess I know one thing: I’m eager to struggle my way upward, even if it means I’ll just be further up in the middle.
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Tagged as:
Blogging,
content,
creation,
Technology
Falling short of true content creation
by Andy DeSoto on August 5, 2008
In her post, she verbalized a sentiment familiar to many of us:
This seems to be a common problem as of late, as also echoed by Robert Scoble in one of his best pieces yet, “Has/How/Why Tech Blogging has Failed You.” Even though I can’t compare my amateur experiences to their professional ones, I can definitely relate; for me, though, it’s a little bit different.
Blogging doesn’t quite feel like content creation
I started up andydesoto.com for one simple reason: I enjoy being creative, tackling nonstandard problems, and producing and sharing content and material with the people around me. However, unlike creating viral YouTube videos or groovy indie tunes, blogging is much more subtle in that it focuses on the written word rather than something more immediately glamorous.
I think part of what can occasionally make the blogging experience less rewarding is that writing about a niche topic, whether politics, technology, food, or otherwise, is often an exercise in finely treading a line between content creation and mere content commentary. When we spend too much time creating metacontent, that is, content about content, things start to feel much less rewarding for us.
I think in the tech world, the danger of this metacontent is that tech bloggers rarely are the ones that are creating the primary source content. Personally, I think that if I had the requisite technical coding or design skills, for instance, I would be creating iPhone applications instead of merely writing about them.
How do we make news?
The big question is this: how do we make news, rather than just write about it? Corvida and I had a brief exchange in the comments section where she suggested writing about something new, being a “discussion starter,” but I wonder if that’s enough (or, even, if that would be successful).
I think part of the secret might lie in some of the mobile blogging tools and utilities that are slowly being integrated into our lifestyles. Scoble’s massive repository of Qik interviews, for instance, provide a humanness and accessibility that feels much grander than mere words on a page. Perhaps synthesizing a wider array of multimedia into coverage and commentary would make for a more rewarding experience.
Your thoughts?
Perhaps this is what separates the blogging ‘men from the boys,’ so to speak; what differentiates the truly great minds from those in the middle of the pack. I guess I know one thing: I’m eager to struggle my way upward, even if it means I’ll just be further up in the middle.
Tagged as: Blogging, content, creation, Technology