Stop with the guest posting already
April 20, 2006 - 1:23am — bmann
Um, can we stop with the guest posting already? If I wanted to subscribe to other people....I'd subscribe to them. We have a time honoured tradition of pointing to off-blog content...it's called a "link", or perhaps a "quote".
Want to have more than one "voice"? Great...there are lots of different systems that allow more than one person to blog.
And let me name names -- Scoble, Joi, and Om. Please, stop. Or have a separate, guest blog feed that I can *choose* to subscribe to.
Thanks for listening to the rant.
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Postings and comments are owned by their authors. What Boris says here doesn't necessarily apply anywhere else. You can subscribe by email if RSS isn't your bag, baby.
Comments
Evolution of the Blogosphere
Boris,
I view this as the evolution of the "top-tier" bloggers. They have created a brand that, while you may dislike, must keep producing content. They are slaves to their own creation. I do agree, however, that having a seperate feed for the guest posts makes sense, you have signed up for the brand message, not someone-elses-interpretation-of-the-brand-message.
If Scoble, for example, went on vacation and went somewhere that didn't have Internet access (GASP!!) then his blog would not be generating the obscene volume of information bits that some people find interesting. Essentially, he is Slashdot but with less name recognition. No links == less traffic == lower ranking.
I would imagine if I was in his place and needed a break I would find others to provide content so that my "brand" stayed active in people's minds.
Personally, I prefer the blogs of people that actually do critical analysis or create original content (Rands In Repose is a excellent example) to the link factory that Scoble is. This tactic also keeps my RSS "to read" list a lot less active.
Instead of Diluting Their 'Namespace'
Jason Kottke (on his links weblog) and Mark Pilgrim have been doing this lately too. Jason had Greg Knauss, Anil Dash and David Jacobs add links, and Mark's father has been writing about life in New Orleans post-Katrina, but they (Jason and Mark) might have been better off saying "I'm going away for a while, follow these people because they're really great" instead of diluting their 'namespace', as all the bloggers you mention as well as the ones I mention have their name or a variation in their domain names.
My other big pet peeve with blogging.
People who apologize for lack of content on their site.
It's your website. If you choose to not put anything up, who am I to care? I have choices as well. I can choose to hang out if the previous content was good, or I can choose to no longer read that site.
Hmm, I wonder if I have apologized on my site?