It’s typical of me to not even consider jumping on the bandwagon until a trend isn’t just old news; by the time I get there, the trend has become an entrenched facet of culture. Enter blogging. The blogosphere has been thriving since the nineties, yet here I am almost two decades later, finally seeing what it’s all about. Let me just divest myself of this flannel and my Walkman. Hey, I just heard I can “download” some Cypress Hill off of the “Internet”. Wow!
When Mitchell and I decided to take on a blog of our own, I had to hit up my old friend who’s been living it up in the blogosphere since back in the day. His most recent project can be found here:
http://bodybuildingelf.blogspot.com/
He was kind enough to give me his analysis of what makes a blog work and he even laid out a few pointers for little ol’ me. Thanks, Luke!
Blog success is something to measure over time.
So, checking the blog stats every four seconds is probably a little premature? Patience is a quality I must embrace.
If you’re having fun doing it, it’s met the most important standard of success for a blog.
Phew. Got that one down. This is the most fun I’ve ever had without a horse-whip and a beer.
A blog post doesn’t need to be a full-length essay, but it doesn’t need to not be one either.
Hm. Well, I do tend to be a little wordy. I think I might need to mix it up a little.
He uses two of his favorite blogs as examples. I’m sure these guys are familiar to lots and lots of people, but this is the first I’ve heard of them. Remember: this is all totally new to me. The first, Skippystalin, is rather verbose. Upon Luke’s suggestion, I checked it out. Awesomeness. It is, to quote him, not work- or kid-friendly. But it is hysterical and astute. Open at your own risk:
http://enjoyeverysandwich.blogspot.com/
On the other end of the blog-length spectrum is Glenn Reynolds, who, Luke explains, “posts just a link and give his own take in a few short sentences.” Check it out:
Luke’s thoughts on what makes a blog successful reminds me of Joe Duck’s article, Blogs as a Digestive Tract. He was giving props to Nick Carr for coming up with the concept of bloggers as news-and-media-digesters. I’m sure I probably fit into that category somewhat, but it raised the question: what kind of media-digesting enzyme am I?
http://joeduck.com/2008/03/22/blogs-as-a-digestive-tract/
I don’t know exactly what kind of information-eater I want to be. It changes by the minute. I just know that it feels good to have a place to have complete creative freedom. It’s pure fun to think of topics, bounce them off Mitchell, hear his ideas and find ways to make this space somewhere people want to go to laugh and learn. Well, learn might be a stretch, but it is one of my long-term goals to actually bring something new to our readers’ attention.
Blog success. I’m still not sure what that means. These things don’t pay, do they? If they do, where do I sign up? I’m hoping to hire a staff of “system analysts” to drive me around and bring me my mail. I’m already accepting applications. I know; it seems a little presumptuous. But I figure if this writing thing doesn’t take off for me, I can always get involved with local politics.
One small correction, my most recent project is the non-skippy blog that you can get to by clicking on my name in one of these comments. My Skippy archive was the first project that I didn’t feel like deleting. Working on that single-issue made blogging more and more fun and then I finally felt like I had something not-completely retarded to say, so I went and started Gundark.
I will make that correction post haste, doll.
N