I’m trying to get used to having to think back to front in putting this blog together. My introduction is right at the bottom. When you read a book the introduction is the first thing you read. But Im told by the expert in this field that people are lazy and dont like to scroll down a page to read a latest entry. Is this the way it really is? When I’m reading a blog, I like to go over old entries to read any comments that people may have submitted and then comment on their comments.
I’ve started this blog with an overview of my family as it was a way for me to try out some creative writing, while at the same time letting them know that they are very special to me. The blog expert referred to above thinks that maybe the family blog should be a separate blog from a blog containing opinion writing. Im going to persevere, for the moment, with just one blog as I might be the only person reading it anyway. Ive had this set up for me because I felt a need to have an opinion. If someone happens to read my opinion all well and good but at least I have expressed it. Ive spent most of my life being very careful about expressing an opinion, because Ive been aware that having an opinion can sometimes hurt people’s feelings. But I’ve come to the stage in my life that I’m really not too worried about it any more.
I’m going to persevere with the family theme for a little bit longer as I wish to publish a photo of my parents and Vern’s parents and I’m going to write about my relationship with my parents. I’m hoping Vern will do the same with his parents. If I am getting too carried away with the genealogy theme I may think about having a different blog for this.
I don’t think it’s a problem having one blog for several uses- you can always create some categories for them.
I agree it can be counterintuitive having the most recent appear first, but I guess that the nature of blogging is that people don’t read it from first to last, they read it on an ongoing basis, so are mostly interested in the most recent thing you’ve written.
Creating categories in your blog for the major types of postings you envisage is a good idea, as Raewyn suggests. You have always got an option to split things into 2 separate blogs at a later time if both categories show strong growth.
I think blogs can be used for many different purposes. On the one hand a blog can be written to express daily opinion on some aspect of daily life in much the same way that an editorial does in a major newspaper. In this format the blog is a dynamic document and the latest pronouncement naturally falls at the beginning or at the top of the blog page as it is the one that the daily reader wishes to access as quickly as possible. The assumption is that they have already read previous postings. An example of this is David Farrar’s political blog.
A blog can also be used in the sense of a diary where the first and oldest diary entries appear at the top of the blogspace and the postings taken as a whole reads in chronological sequence, much like a book. Examples of this format is Raewyn’s travel diary and our travel diary. These formats work because they are static documents and are meant to be read from begining to end like a book.
I dont think I will ever be in the David Farrar league of blogging but I would certainly like to be paid the money he gets paid for his political commentary.
I think the neccesity of whether you have one or more blogs will depend as you say, on how the content develops, and of course your intended audience, and interaction that you wish to have with that audience.
As Vern says above you can have a blog so that the first post is at the top, but i’d agree with both Vern and Raewyn in that the design of a blog is something that is regularly read, so you have already read every prior post and now want to see the most recent. Ideally if a person posts daily you read it daily, or if they post weekly then you read it weekly.
There are tools available for people to find out if you have posted to your blog without them even having to go to it, which is often how they can ensure they never miss out on anything.
I’ve actually been having a debate with myself similiar to the one you are having, whether one blog should be used for mixed activities, or whether i should set up another one. I guess it also depends on how many you can cope with, i know i already have plenty and don’t update some anywhere near as frequently as i should.
I look forward to seeing how this develops.
Who is this so-called blog expert? I didn’t know there is such a thing.
Blogs are meant to be personal and unique. Having a uniformed look & feel with the rest of the ‘blog community’ defeats the purpose and frankly makes it less interesting.
Do what you like, it’s YOUR blog.
Having categories solves the issue of organizing different topics.
Express your opinions away. That’s what makes blogs (at least in my opinion) interesting to read.
Of course Vern is the Blog expert I was referring to. I referred to him as the expert as he set it up for me and I do need his help in resizing photos etc. He has also had a bit of experience in putting Blogs together. I was being a bit flippant when I referred to him as the expert as I agree with you Novey there is no such thing as a Blog expert. Everyone has their own ideas on these sorts of things. You may be interested in Nathans Blog (Russells second cousin) who has lived in Colorado for a number of years and has now returned to New Zealand with his family. He is not afraid to express his opinions which I think you will find interesting.
Nic, Vern has told me about the tools for receiving updates on Blogs etc without actually having to go to the Blog. Thats fine, but wouldnt you want to interact with other people who have made comments on a Blog? I think the same applies to Flickr where you can receive updates on your contacts photos without going searching for them. But I like to go to the site and fossick around reading what people think of various photos. I also like the interaction that occurs with these photos.
I use these tools to discover when something new has been posted, instead of having to check 20 blogs every day, then i click on the link to go to the site itself, which allows me to comment if i wish.
Theres several ways in which these tools can be used too. 🙂
Do these tools also let you know when new comments have been posted onto a blog? If that is so, then that would change by mind completely about using these tools. Maybe Ill get Vern to set up this for me and then I can judge for myself. Thanks for the feedback.
Well if your blog is capable, and i know that this one is, you can get a feed of new comments, through this tool.
My blog doesn’t have a feed for comments, but thats ok because i get e-mails every time someone posts a comment and i’m happy with that.
Yes you can get a feed for the comments left on a blog – I have one set up for this blog. On flickr you can get a feed for the comments left on your photos, and also for the comments left on photos you have commented on, which is really good for interactation because it’s easy to see if someone says something in reply to something you’ve said. You can see this on the flickr site if you go into “Comments You’ve Made” (you may have already realised that, it took me a while to discover it though).
Oh Wow Comment feeds for Flickr! I must investigate, i always miss comments people leave on Flickr, Flickr is just used for my moblog photos, so i expect people to comment on my blog, but sometimes they comment on Flickr, and several months later i find their comments.
Yes, I have just discovered the “Comments You’ve Made” and that has given me comments on my comments. So now I just go to this part of Flickr and then onto the sites where comments have been made. Does this make sense?