

Ask YC: To blog or not to blog? - deltapoint

Is it worth it to have a personal blog? What are the benefits and drawbacks of having a personal blog?
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noonespecial
Just look at how Paul does it. He calls them "Essays" of course but it seems
to be a really good model. He never posts anything just to post it, and so
sometimes there are large intervals between posts. Everything he does post
seems very insightful and helps us understand where he and YCombinator are
coming from.

I'm much more impressed by this from, even with the large interval between
posts than the _"today my cat hoarked on the rug again..."_ kind of blog.

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1gor
Jacob Nielsen agrees with you: "Write articles not blog postings" --
<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/articles-not-blogs.html>

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konsl
Benefits:

\- Having your thoughts/opinions online

\- Discussions with readers can be valuable

Drawbacks:

\- Taking the time to author original, thought provoking and/or informative
posts. When blogs echo or summarize other posts, without any added
thoughts/opinions/etc, they suck

\- Keeping it up-to-date i.e. Wordpress upgrades, etc

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rugoso
"Taking the time to author original, thought provoking and/or informative
posts ..."

But maybe you should do this sort of thing just because is good for you in the
first place (as opposed to good for your blog/PR). Write down and develop your
thoughts on paper, just as you do with code/pseudocode. Then once you have
something worthy, publish/share it.

~~~
konsl
Goot pt. Wanted to say this as well, just couldn't find the words.

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goofygrin
You know, the best thing about having a blog is how it kind of acts like a
journal (I think that Jeff Atwood of codinghorror said this).

I look back to some old stuff that I've written and I am continually mortified
by either my writing style or what I thought was important.

The negative is that people will read your blog and what's that old saying,
"better that people think you're dumb than you open your mouth and prove it"

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bkrausz
I've tried blogging 2 or 3 times. Right now I post on my blog every month or
so. The problem with me is that I eventually run out of ideas and the blog
feels more like work than a pass time.

But I think that may just be me...I'd say go for it, what do you have to lose
besides a little time?

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brianm
My blog has been a godsend. For me, as a hacker writing about hacking, it has
opened doors, made introductions, answered questions, and sharpened my
thought.

Biggest drawback is that the really bad ideas get archived on the intertron
forever, along with the rare nuggets of gold.

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wallflower
If you mean personal blog that is a password-protected, private blog, yes,
it's worth it. I track my progress in all kinds of areas, diary-style in a
blog. It's easier than trying to hand-write a diary and you can mine stories
from the jotted-down experiences.

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jasonlbaptiste
It's definitely good. the real question can you keep up at it? Sometimes I'm
too ADD to keep blogging. Twitter on the other hand, I use all the time. Much
easier to get thoughts out. Right now, my personal domain just feeds in my
tweets lol.

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edw519
Regular blog postings would divert too much time from hacking.

Not posting regularly would be unfair to my readers (if I could keep any).

So I come here instead.

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curi
they are easy to make. just make one when you have an idea you want to post.
post again next time you have an idea you want to post. the drawback of not
doing this is deleting those potential posts for no reason.

