I've been blogging on a couple of personal sites for nearly two years, following the model that I've seen across the web. Most of my posts are a short article of a paragraph or two, an image and then a link to an important web resource that I sincerely recommend to my visitors. (No, I don't use my blog to give links to my own sites, the goal is to serve others - not manufacture link pop.) Maybe you would call my blog a "news filter" as I watch the news for my topic and post the best of the best so that my readers can get the top news easily.This takes some time. About 30 minutes per post, plus the time that I spend prospecting the news. The measurable return is a few hundred to several thousand visitors per day (depending upon the news), a few unreciprocated links and a small number of adsense clicks. This return is what comes in through the pages of the blog.
But the intangible return is the what the blog does for the image of my site and how many of the homepage links, type-in visits and bookmark visits are a result of my work on the blog.
I've decided to chuck the current model.
Why? Yesterday I really like Randfish's Monday Quarterback post. It was short and sent me out to a large number of great articles. After thinking about it I decided that if I really want to serve my blog visitors I should be doing the same thing. Instead of giving an indepth report/review and then a link to a resource I should be making shorter posts on a variety of topics - almost like a list of links.
Visitors come to my blog to get the news and the news is what I should give them - not just a selected article or two.
In the time that I compose and write a two paragraph article and conjure up an image I could have posted direct links to an entire smorgasboard of news. Less time spent for me and more variety for my visitors. If I have commentary I can add that in one sentence. You are probably thinking that it will look like ThreadWatch.org... nope, it's going to be even shorter.
I am betting that this new format gets more dedicated readers (higher information density), more links (from greater coverage) and more traffic (higher rankings from the increased links and greater on-page keyword variety in anchor text and headings).
I am going to try this on one of my sites to see what happens. How do you think it will work?
Getting these feedbacks is good as I want to be sure that I am doing the right thing. Thanks!
I think that some subjects such as political commentary or controversial issues on a blog give lots of opportunity for the injection of "soul". Mine has not been that way and the subject matter is factual rather than provocative. I've been practicing and teaching these topics for 30 years and can scan and pick the relevant and interesting ones right away - so I can do better than a mechanical aggregator - plus many of them are sent to me by colleagues rather than pulled from a feed somewhere.
I think that lots of the comments here are great if the blog is the heart of the site and the burning desire of the owner.
That's not the case for this site. Instead of taking the time to write a "soul" into this blog I feel that my time is better spent developing targeted content - that I know for a fact will draw more traffic and more links. This is a time and money decision.
I don't want to abandon the blog, just find a faster way of doing that job. I can pick and post three news headlines per day - with a one sentence comment each - in 1/2 of the time that it takes to write a single article. That gives site visitors a larger menu of news to draw upon and gives me additional time to create the content which IMO is the purpose of the site. I see this as win-win for me and the visitors - and no loss of soul as it was not there to start with.
The comments in this thread are very valuable and here is the gold nugget of them.... When I do have a comment I should post it in highlight or use an icon to draw attention. So in the maybe once weekly situations when I have commentary beyond the source content I should clearly make them stand out.
You know EGOL, you could always throw the book away again and adopt Tabke's model of robots.txt blogging -- there's something to be said for that kind of uniqueness.
Oooh...how about 404 page blogging? That'd be pretty funny.
My prediction: "Aggregate," and all derivations thereof, will be one of the most popular... and soon to be one of the most annoying buzzwords of 2006.
I see where EGOL is going with the post. Basically, a blog full of pithy posts and insightful links has its place. EGOL becomes the human aggregator for whatever niche his blog serves, and benefits from all the trackbacks, pings, and aggregations.
The idea of building a blog that’s a daily source of news for enthusiasts makes a lot of sense, but that may not be enough. Voice, community, credibility, and dare I say branding are the missing elements. Even a documentary is shown through the eyes of its creator… so if people like your style (what you say, where you link, etc), the Monday Morning Quarterback blog has its place. Or, you can mix it up and do both.
If you want to be a thought-leader, build a thought-leader blog. If you want to build a name for yourself, build a credibility blog. If you want traffic, build a traffic blog.
Seeing as I’m incapable of writing a short comment, my “blogging” options are somewhat limited.
If the blog posts are so short, where do you squeeze in the adsense? Isn't that what blogging is all about?
Coming to this site i'm looking for opinions i subscribe to a number of sites which are just are human aggregators and although i still subscribe i rarely vist the site to look at anything else these feeds have no soul. Even the links are more often than not left unvisited. On article one topic is prahaps not enough but two or three topics with shorter views might be better.
Thanks for these comments. It helps to think things out when diverse opinions and ideas are flowing.
pfflyer: lol... human aggregation... yes, that's what I've been doing already but with this idea will step it up a bit. So far I've not added much of my own opinion, just the opinion used to select interesting items.
randfish: I really like that Fark.com site. Never saw it before. As for community, my site really does not have one at present. It's simply an info site where I try to be unbiased and factual. I've stayed away from opening a forum or allowing comments on my blog as many of the topics can become jugular with some people. The comments in this thread by donna and sorvoja make me think about how a strong position by me could boost or sink my status with many people.
Becoming the human aggregator is the middle road.
It depends... If your readers look to you as an expert or authority, they may miss your take on things. However, if they really are only interested in a news aggregator, then your idea might be perfect for them.
ADDED: yeah, what pff said... lol ... his post made it thru right before mine did. :)
In my opinion to many "Monday Quarterback" posts would kill a blog.
I enjoy blogs where the author has opinions, brings up issues and posts that offers insight into something. If Rand started to post a "Quarterback" post every day, then I would visit this blog less.
A blog is not all about linking to other web sites or helping the reader find useful links, we want the juicy opinions and ideas.
To me it's a question of community - what kind of community comes to your site and what do they want?
Models like Threadwatch can be exceptionally successful (even without the wry british and now American humor), they can even become monsters in their field - places like Fark.com certainly have.
Before I did something like that, I'd almost certainly want to have a dialogue with my most frequent and passionate readers. If you don't, you could risk alienation.
Human Aggregation. Ok that sounds bad. Aggregation performed by Humans is probably the best way to go. It is what bloggers, by and large, do. Whether it is the long form or the short form depends on the audience. If readers value your opinion, then the long form is the way to go. If they just feel youre a great aggregator, then the short form is the way to go. I would say in the end, you will need a combination of both.