I'm part of a low-value demographic, apparently.

[geekchick]

Interesting timing, given a conversation going on elsewhere:

Jakob Nielsen's take on Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes.

If you publish on many different topics, you're less likely to attract a loyal audience of high-value users. Busy people might visit a blog to read an entry about a topic that interests them. They're unlikely to return, however, if their target topic appears only sporadically among a massive range of postings on other topics. The only people who read everything are those with too much time on their hands (a low-value demographic).

Alrighty then. Personally, I enjoy topic-specific and wide-ranging blogs in about equal measure. Also, while I agree with his point that if you don't use your own domain name, you risk losing chunks of your audience, incoming traffic from links elsewhere, etc. when your hosting company decides to add pop-up ads on every page and you decide to leave, his first paragraph in that section leaves a little bit to be desired: "Having a weblog address ending in blogspot.com, typepad.com, etc. will soon be the equivalent of having an @aol.com email address or a Geocities website: the mark of a naïve beginner who shouldn't be taken too seriously." I've read plenty of blogs at dedicated domains that I wouldn't even remotely take as seriously as someone like, say, Rivka. Personally, I care more about what you actually say than whether you're saying it at Blogspot/Livejournal/etc., but then I suppose that's why I'm neither a highly-paid usability consultant nor a "big name blogger", eh?

Comments

[points.livejournal.com]

I'm more amused that there are already 'experts' in this field.

[geekchick]

Well, consider where the linked post is coming from. ;)

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Some days, I don't think my LJ is actually a blog. I mean, it meets all the technical requirements to be one, but culturally it seems a million miles away from the sort of thing most people seem to mean by the word.

Re: I'm part of a low-value demographic, apparently.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*nod*. same here. aside from hating the word "blog" because it's butt-ugly, i don't write in my LJ to "attract a loyal audience of high-value users". and it's not sour grapes when i say that i don't want to be a big-name blogger.

i write about stuff that interests me, and stuff that randomly pops into my head, and things i did (with more or less success), and amusing, weird, esoteric tidbits that make my day. it's mostly mundane. it's a way to allow others to share my strange little slice of the world, and to not have topic limitations (unlike usenet which was my prior hangout).

it's not meant to impress and become its own justification for being.

Re: I'm part of a low-value demographic, apparently.

[geekchick]

Yeah, I'm glad "become a big-name blogger" has never been on my list of things to do, because I'm obviously going about it all wrong. =) I used to periodically feel a little bad that I wasn't writing about big, weighty topics, but I got over that because there are other people who write on those topics much more eloquently than I ever will, and it's just not usually what I want to write about.

i write about stuff that interests me, and stuff that randomly pops into my head, and things i did (with more or less success), and amusing, weird, esoteric tidbits that make my day.

I think this is actually why I tend to read my LJ friends list more than I do topic-specific blogs, because I enjoy that kind of content.

[geekchick]

I rarely, if ever, refer to this as a "blog", for pretty much the reason you mention.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I suck as a blogger.

Even though I agree with some of his comments, the one about topicality is a purely print phenomenon; it doesn't apply to blogs.

Also the comment about blogger, et al., forget something important, continuity. I could get a Blogger account, or suchlike, but you know what... I have a space here, and it wouldn't be the same if I moved.

And, this is important to me, why ought I to spend the extra money. This isn't a profit source for me, so the 25 bucks I spend on it in a year (for pretty much unlimited traffic) is about right.

If that keeps me in the bush leagues, well I'll be in good company.

TK

[geekchick]

Yeah, I suck as a blogger.

Possibly, but you're a damned interesting read.