In trying to think about what kind of blog it is I was writing here myself, I was thinking about what kinds of blogs existed, and what kind I liked and also just wondering... "What is a blog?" (*squints eyes thoughtfully and scratches non-existent goatee*)
- There are news blogs. Example: gigaom.com
They post probably 4-8 times / day. There are several writers working on it.
This is about finding the news in a genre (tech in GigaOM's case) and providing latest news + unique commentary.
This is not that type of blog. - There are personal blogs. Examples: dashes.com (Anil Dash) or darrenbarefoot.com (Darren Barefoot)
These generally have a theme/locus of knowledge but they are also more broad than news sites. And, some of them, will toss in personal tidbits. This is where I started in my understanding of what blogs were: they must include personal tidbits.
I find, on the whole, that I don't read the personal tidbits entries. Even one of the tech blogs I enjoy that is relatively popular, who does include bits about his kids (whose names are Fufu and Zanzibar - which adds to the interest somewhat) and whose commentary and thought on his personal life is good... unless the topic is interesting to me (e.g. when he reviewed the PVR/DVRs he uses), I don't read them.
This is not that type of blog. - There are corporate blogs / podcasts. Examples: Stanford's excellent Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders podcast series (a series of lectures from a variety of tech entrepreneurs), Adaptive Path's corporate blog (they are a information design & architecture consulting outfit and post in that sphere)
These often have "about the company" posts: this person has published a new book, our latest event is selling out, staff changes. That's in addition to informative posts about their area of expertise.It's kind of like a personal blog, but it's what the firm would write if the firm were writing a personal blog - oh the circuitous-ness of this sentence - you understand what I mean. - Unpublished Articles. Example: Paul Graham On... well, nearly everything tech of interest to him
I don't know if this is so much a category of blogging as something that looks like a blog but really isn't. (First articles are lifts from a 1993 book, many are lifts from talks given.)
I don't know a lot of people in this category. This category can tend towards being more "articles that don't happen to be published on other channels" or things that are published, but not this specific collection. - UPDATE: Link Blogs. Example: Steve Rubel's Micropersuasion.
These are generally not just links, but often posts are just links. This can be good, but I generally am not fond of these.
I've toyed with this idea, and I try to make a point of adding links at the end of posts where it makes sense: this is what the web is about: being able to keep digging and follow links (links are the "HT" in HTML).
What categories did I miss?
My Posts
I also looked at some of my posts that I think are good or better from a "source" sense (not quality of writing or interest-level of topic), trying to find out "how" I might blog best.
I think the ones that synthesize information (particularly from disparate sources, or unusual combinations [e.g. applying free-market history to hiring web designers]), often tackling things that might be hard to understand and explaining them in simple terms (these are often more enjoyable to me as they are often moments of learning of my own: I was mentally understanding a concept and explaining it made my own learning better).
I think 2 blog posts of mine that are representative of this:
- On Free-market & states of development: Wired on China: In a Faking state
- On the big numbers using Abstractions: Busy Beavers and The Best Leaky Abstraction to Date
