I kind of like this blog world. I have found though that how I interact with it greatly alters my experience. I use to have everyone bookmarked and I could wander for hours checking on un-updated blogs and discovering new ones. Bloglinks are the new friendoffriends.
Now I use a reader (googlereader) which is far more efficient, but it does change some things. One, I don't have to sort through so many before I find someone who has updated. Two, I can follow a lot more blogs. But the third thing is what makes me wistful, to wit: I am less likely to stumble upon a new blog unless someone links to it in the body of their post. So I miss that, but maybe it allows me to actually get work done during the day (I follow about 70 blogs). I think that this kind of "success" in the blog world has also got to inhibit the blogs ability to make money (I don't see banner ads anymore).
This different kind of interaction has also made me think about critical mass. If a blogger doesn't post much I forget about hirm (him/her), but my reader remembers, and when they come back to life, I can follow them again. But there are a couple of blogs that I really like that post WAY too much. I followed the serif for a long time (graphic design is one of my secret-wish jobs), and even though they have great taste over there and are posting a lot of interesting content. There are just TOO many posts on a daily basis for me. Now that might just be me, but I think any more than one or two posts a day is about my limit. The Sartorialist (THE fashion blog) hits that maximum about right, but anymore and I might have to remove him as well. I am only a casual observer of both fields (though I might use concepts gleaned from either in my work). Personal blogs can hit critical mass pretty easily. I think though, that ideally once a week is a nice figure, especially if everyone didn't update on the same day (Right now there is a deluge of Monday updaters, whom I theorize are trying to prove that their weekend was the fabuloustest, or who simply need to put off starting the work week as long as possible by blogging).
My other pet peeve is people that write really long blog entries (even if I like the content), so maybe I should end this now.
3 comments:
i hear you! as a reader/stalker of your blog (hooray for google reader) i have to say that you don't blog often enough and this post bordered on being just a touch too long - but you saved yourself by ending when you did. that's all.
You know, I should probably do the Google Reader thing too. I'm still kind of technology behind in things that might make my life a little easier.
shiz, my posts are always too long, I stress out about that too.
but I follow Stereogum and Tree Hugger which each post like 1 million times a day...it's annoying.
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