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There’s nothing quite so tedious as blogging about blogging, but I came across a few heart-warming thoughts recently that it would be remiss of me to let go unremarked, so please indulge me for a moment as I wallow in some meta-blogging.

Marco Arment talks about the trend that many others have noticed, of personal publishing dying out in favour of tweeting:

Too much of my writing in the last few years has gone exclusively into Twitter. I need to find a better balance.

As he rightly points out:

Twitter is a complementary medium to blogging, but it’s not a replacement.

Andy noticed a similar trend in his own writing:

Twitter and Waxy Links cannibalized all the smaller posts, and as my reach grew, I started reserving blogging for more “serious” stuff — mostly longer-form research and investigative writing.

Well, fuck that.

Amber Hewitt also talks about reviving the personal blog:

Someone made an analogy that describes social networks very well. Facebook is your neighborhood, Twitter is your local bar, and your blog is your home. (I guess Instagram is the cafe? “Look what I’m eating!”)

This made me realized I’m neglecting my home. My posts and photos are spread out on different networks and there is no centralized hub.

That reminds me of what Frank said about his site:

In light of the noisy, fragmented internet, I want a unified place for myself—the internet version of a quiet, cluttered cottage in the country.

The wonderful Gina Trapani—who has has publishing on her own site for years now—follows Andy’s lead with some guidelines for short-form blogging:

• If it’s a paragraph, it’s a post.
• Negotiate a comfort zone.
• Traffic is irrelevant.
• Simplify, simplify.
• Ask for trusted collaborator feedback.
• Have fun.

Good advice.

Rob Weychert | Art & Design

Rob has redesigned his site and it’s looking gorgeous.

I really like the categories he’s got for his blog.

We Are Still the Web - The History of the Web

The web is just people. Lots of people, connected across global networks. In 2005, it was the audience that made the web. In 2025, it will be the audience again.

The Free Web - The History of the Web

I am going to continue to write this newsletter. I am going to spend hours and hours pouring over old books and mailing lists and archived sites. And lifeless AI machines will come along and slurp up that information for their own profit. And I will underperform on algorithms. My posts will be too long, or too dense, or not long enough.

And I don’t care. I’m contributing to the free web.

POSSE: Reclaiming social media in a fragmented world

This rhymes nicely with Mandy’s recent piece on POSSE:

Despite its challenges, POSSE is extremely empowering for those of us who wish to cultivate our own corners of the web outside of the walled gardens of the major tech platforms, without necessarily eschewing them entirely. I can maintain a presence on the platforms I enjoy and the connections I value with the people there, while still retaining primary control over the things that I write and freedom from those platforms’ limitations.

Coming home | A Working Library

While one of the reasons oft declared for using POSSE is the ability to own your content, I’m less interested in ownership than I am in context. Writing on my own site has very different affordances: I’m not typing into a little box, but writing in a text file. I’m not surrounded by other people’s thinking, but located within my own body of work. As I played with setting this up, I could immediately feel how that would change the kinds of things I would say, and it felt good. Really good. Like putting on a favorite t-shirt, or coming home to my solid, quiet house after a long time away.

Mandy’s writing positively soars and sings in this beautiful piece!