Blogging Is Not Complicated

Bora has a post taking issue with the claim made in Slate’s blogging guide article that blog posts should be short. At least, I think that was his point– the post was much too long, and I didn’t read it all.

I’m constantly amazed by how evergreen the “how to blog” topic is. It’s just not that complicated– pick a blogging system, find a host, and start typing. There is literally no wrong way to do it– for every rule put out there that you absolutely must follow, there are probably ten blogs that violate it, and are brilliant.

Individuality is the point of the whole enterprise. The world doesn’t need another clumsy imitation of the Huffington Post– I don’t even read the original, but if I wanted to, I could. It’s possible, though, that I might want to read a new voice, writing about different things in a different way.

As I’ve said many times before, and will no doubt bore you all by repeating many times in the future, I think that these “blogging guides” and workshops and so on that are predicated on the idea that blogs are a replacement for traditional journalism (or traditional academic publishing, or whatever) are missing the point. If blogs are going to have a transformative effect on society in general, it’s not going to be as a farm team for the New York Times. The real potential for change comes from giving ordinary people to power to put their thoughts, ideas, and, basically, their lives out on the Web for everyone to see.

Where that will take us (if anywhere), I don’t know. But it’ll be a damn sight more interesting than another ten thousand wannabe pundit blogs. So skip the advice books, and just get on with it.