I’m really interested in talking about Seth Godin’s blog about “High resolution mistakes”, and how concern about metrics, and drawing the Digg crowd (or blogging for popularity in general), can ruin what might otherwise be an entertaining, personal blog. I mean, if you can write, you can write, and you can find stories in your life that are interesting. Following the cookie cutter model to popular blogging means you’ll just end up with another robotic technopolisci blog among thousands. I like his list of “common metrics”, and their possible real points, but to me the crux of his article lies here:
There are literally millions of bloggers that have become so focused on measurable traffic that they end up posting nonsense designed to do nothing but attract a Digg. Look back at a blog like that a month later and it appears to be a series of gimmicks, all designed to maximize a metric that’s almost totally irrelevant to what the blogger set out to do in the first place.
I wanted to be popular once. Thankfully, these days I just want to be me.
2 replies on “Keeping the “me” in metrics”
Ah, popular blogs can get to be a pain sometimes. When I let go of Pencil Revolution, it felt like a weight had been lifted: the weight of blogging for everyone else. I don’t have a tenth of the readership on my own blog, but it seldom feels like something with pressure from other people. I think the being-you on here is working out in a manner which can be called nothing but rocking;)
I was telling Abby about PRevo the other night. It was a neat idea, but I totally understand that the pressure of writing for other people can be totally not worth it. I enjoy writing. Even this Info Needs Assessment I’m writing up right now is kind of fun. But when there are deadlines, and pressures, and you’re not even writing for yourself – and consequently it stops being fun, yeah, I really just don’t see what the point in all that is.
I mean, what has a Digg ever really accomplished for anyone?
I enjoy your personal ramblings, and I’m quite honored that you consider me “rocking”.
Cheers.