Haven't been blogging lately as you can see. The problem hasn't been lack of motivation - in fact, it's really been over-motivation. The fact is that I'm very interested in writing on a whole bunch of topics - photography, film, creativity, business, startups, politics, geekery, graphic design & typography, history of polymaths, fictitious oratory, and several other things. The trouble is, these don't all fit under the roof of "Artistic Whim" any more. Thus, the dilemma - to have one single blog that I can blather about anything, or to have lots of little blogs focused on one topic.
Conventional web wisdom says that having a clear, fixed focus helps build readership more quickly as it's easy for readers to figure out what to expect. That puts the burden on me to categorize my thoughts a priori, and to tune the post for the particular blog it'll land on. That gets sticky when a post really fits many categories. Do I cross-post it to several blogs? Or just post it to the most applicable blog, then post a few "hey look over there at my other blog" posts elsewhere?
On the other hand, having a single blog is really convenient for me - I write posts off the top of my head, then tag them with a whole slew of categories. Such a diverse blog might also help attract other diversely diverted people like myself. It's also more convenient for friends & family who want to keep up with all my antics and don't want to track a dozen blogs. On the other hand, being filled with random topics, a kitchen sink blog is unlikely to grow readership.
Any suggestions?
November 17th, 2007
by Laurie
Well, almost all of your subjects sound either artistic or somewhat whimsical, so I’d say they do fall under the Artistic Whim umbrella. You gotta be allowed to go off on a few whims, after all. Every good blog throws in a little diversity, so we can get to know the complicated human being behind the targeted blog. They wouldn’t be much fun without it. Take a look at some of your favorites, a theme yes, but occasional personal diversions allowed (and, I think, welcomed by readers). I vote for keeping it all on one blog. (But then I’m one of those friends that likes having you all in one place.)
November 18th, 2007
by Rob
Thanks for the ideas! Right now I’m leaning towards keeping this my main, personal blog and doing spinoffs for specific topics if it makes sense. That said, I’m going to keep impulsivegeekery as the home for all things tech, internet, business, and the german blog because it seems weird having a mix of languages in one blog.
But, you do give me an idea: maybe a consolidated RSS feed for all things Rob.
January 1st, 2008
by Alex
I think it’s better to have one blog and use good tagging. If folks only want to read about one aspect of what you are thinking about then they can subscribe to a specific tag (most blog software provides per-tag RSS feeds). People aren’t one dimensional and their personal blogs shouldn’t be either.