It actually makes me realise what a small world we bloggers live in. There are many people out there who either don't know weblogs exist or who think they're "online diaries" (which is the description I hear most often from 'normal' people). But I've never been under any illusions that weblogging is anything but a minority sport.
Personal Publishing, on the other hand, has potential to break on through to the mainstream. As my interview with Marc illuminated, personal publishing is not just writing - it's photos, music, movies, reviews, audio, etc. Multimedia. Anyone can create and participate. Anyone can be a producer, not just a consumer. I call it the Read/Write Web (btw that was my very first 'official' blog post - almost one year ago).
Another thing my interview with Marc taught me was that the people and content are the Kings of the Web. There's been a bit of talk in the web designer world recently about focusing on people and not just tools. Jeffrey Zeldman asked today: "Can't we all just get along?" - referring to the either/or arguments between web people such as semantic design vs effective design. And in the developer world, there's the ongoing debate between simple vs complex - and variations thereof. But my specific point here is that, no matter what you're developing or writing or composing or designing or just plain posting - the best results come when you do it for The People.
My interview with Marc is a good example - it looks like it entertained and perhaps even enlightened a lot of people (myself included). Sometimes I post silly little things that are probably only relevant to me - e.g. when I talk about my unpublished (and probably unpublishable) novel, or when I write about my hometown. I don't do that too often, but when I do perhaps I am not thinking enough of my readers. The designers I linked to above - Keith, Paul, Zeldman - all have a habit of keeping their content focused on web design. Which is what their readers want to read and why I subscribe to them. There's a lesson there for me.
So more interviews and less novel-gazing ;-) No seriously, I intend to supply you with further interesting web technology articles, mixed in with web design/development posts and some writing/sci-fi to keep everyone on their toes. Oh and a few more surprises of course!
]]>Is your blog about you, or about your readers?
If it is about your readers - is your blog your avatar - or is it theirs?
"There's a lesson there for me." Yes, but I think if you probe deeper, having the courage to blog about you instead of about what you think your readers want is the only real way to have your blog be your avatar - or at least, to be a good avatar.
If that's what you really want.
But I do think your novel is publishable. It is the sort of sci-fi I would have bought back when I bought many sci-fi novels. Just give it cool cover art.
]]>That said, I think Marc and you both rock.
]]>I do see this weblog primarily as a publishing vehicle, because writing is my forte and so basically I want to be published and read. Same thing if I was a decent programmer (which I ain't!), I'd want my software products to be deployed (=published) and used (=read).
Re writing what I care about, well Web Technology *is* what I care about. So it's not like I'm selling my soul to the devil :-) All I was saying was that I want what I publish on my weblog to satisfy my readers, as well as myself. Whether that gets me a large audience or not is another question.
Andrew, interesting comments. My blog is a reflection of who I am and what I care about. But the reality is, I'm publishing it to the whole world - so it behoves me to think about whether what I post here is relevant to other people (ie my readers). If I'm publishing things that are only relevant to me, well I have to question my motives for doing that - shouldn't I just write those things in a private diary/journal?
To sum up this rather self-centred little rant ;-)... I believe this weblog *does* represent me as a person and my interests. All I'm suggesting (to myself) is that I keep in mind both my own needs as a writer - and my subscribers needs as readers.
]]>I think the best blogs are for the readers and the person blogging. Often the best posts are the ones that come from a special place within the blogger. That sounds kind of cheesy, I know, but what attracts me to Richard's blog is that I can hear his 'voice' in his posts on tech, writing, life or whatever. Some blogs are up on the latest political news or new technology, but they lack that humanity (for lack of a better term) and so do not get my interest. Keep writing, Richard, and I'll keep reading.
]]>Of course, with website as avatar, and you advocating a read/write web, are you advocating a read/write you?
I'll stop now before I cause any more trouble....
]]>Thanks for your kind words Liam.
]]>Either way, congrats Richard, this is an excellent interview. Looking forward to more!
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