You have mentioned a very good point above. I totally agree with you.

Just a quick follow up–once again, well written, and I appreciate your sentiment about blogging.

Keep up the good work, and the massive traffic to my site.

Nice!

Shame on you geezers!we need more intellectual content!

Why do people who expend energy on moaning about grammer always seem to be American. Go read Hunter S. Thompson for the rest of your life. It can’t be very comfortable when your ass is so tight from constipation.

Writing is about ideas, it’s not about rules. Sure, if you’re writing an academic paper on the Sex life of the Grammer Nazi, you may want to sweat over the puctuation and grammer, but at least it will be a short paper.

Some writing styles do not follow the rules, my writing style is one of those. You don’t like it? Then you know what you can do. Shuffle off to your own unread blog and go sharpen your pencil.

This blog is about ideas, original thought. Some people care about grammer, I don’t, not for this blog. If you’re a lawyer or an accountant, maybe it’s important to you.

Evertime I hear a grammer Nazi squeak, I picture a bald, constipated old fart screaming at his monitor, “How dare they demean the apostrophe.” His spittle dribbling down the monitor.

But then, that’s just me.

Can’t win for losing. All the “advice” these days about how to write for blogs (keep it very short, use small words, edit like crazy, use lists, edit like crazy, figure out what they want before you write it, etc.) is mostly garbage. I personally feel people enjoy wordier, more in-depth posts that get to the heart of an issue or topic like shorter posts never could. I know I’ll take a fully digestible post that actually counts as an *article* on a blog over these casually tossed off and poorly thought out drive-by bloggers that you see just tossing off a poorly written line or paragraph or two these days. Like the world automatically wants to read anything they write just because they wrote it. Well, *hello*, no we don’t. A short post once in a while is fine. Great even. It can add a little twist to the usual. But making an everyday habit of it–or making it your entire style of writing –is usually a mistake.

After years of studying how to attract and hold a visitor’s attention, I gave up on it. I tried shorter posts, longer posts, editing myself into virtually haiku delivery, writing free and unbridled and posting it like that, not a single word changed from draft to publication, and I’ve decided that nothing works and everything works, so now I just write however I feel like writing. If I feel analytical and wordy then that’s how it comes out. If I feel like writing just one or two sentences then that’s what I do. My style is fluid and unpredictable and I’ve never been happier with it. If people like your writing and your topics they *will* keep coming back no matter how you lay it out. If they don’t, well then, thanks for stopping by, come again…no worries here.

It’s like a combination of “Why fix it if it’s not broken” and “If you can’t beat them, join them”.

I developed and launched http://www.hadtosay.com with the expectation (well the hope anyway) that it would generate some interesting, well thought out content from people of mid-upper intelligence. People who would use it to communicate in a creative and clever way. A way that site visitors would find interesting, even amusing to read.

Conversely most of the content is from the ‘junkies’ who just use it to poke at, and spew on each other. I’m wondering if I may need to revisit the structure of the site to encourage more of what I’m after.

*Sighh…

I am not joking. I am serious. Massive traffic. Cool.

That statement is based on assupmtion. Perhaps we blogg because we want to spread our opinion to the informer. Don’t you know that assupmtion is the root of all mistakes. [Ghandi?] xD

2. Anyway, the first sentence sounded interesting.

3. 10 Reason lists are rubbish

http://www.netwriting.co.uk/2007/07/17/top-10-reasons-lists-are-rubbish/

Right now, readers of Digg are bashing your article based only on the seemingly paradoxical title and the first paragraph. Even given an article with substance, that’s all people end up reading anyway. It’s too late, the masses are already hopelessly inerred in the fast food nation.

For me, I read select blogs that tell me more about the authors themselves. It’s simple and personal. I don’t want to know what is popular. I want to know what you know! Article like yours, is a good example of stuff that I like to read.

However, there is a level of amusement, seeing your dumbest things getting tons of traffic (and one hour ago you were about to hit Delete, because you did not want your friends to read that stuff). On the other hand, I see great articles, state-of-the-art, well researched stories which end up in darkness, because they don’t appeal to “top whatever social network guys”, who spend their lives showing off.

“Lazy” or “impatient” people don’t want to learn by researching or doing… they want the quick fix that will make them rich and successful tomorrow with minimal effort.

And I’ll be the first to admit that I’m lazy or impatient more often that I’d like to think that I am.

It’s like Bill (Slawski) and Law this week (he used to be in that game..go figure)…

Anyway, to add something at least, I started writing as a cathartic kind of exercise. I keep actual theory/strategy stuff on my main site in a repository. So I was never looking to provide MEAT… I was simply rambling on as I figured no one was listening.

I try not to look at it as a publisher, even now that some folks come by. I am simply talking to myself and anyone that wants to listen. For me it’s all about the passion (he he).

I have enjoyed yer rants this week and hae taken a few points to heart. At the end of the day I will try to make mine what is was meant to be.. a personal space, not business.

keep it up…

Dave

It’s not all bad, but there is a wide swathe of mediocrity out there.

I want to write and share useful information, but balancing that thin line of making the information consumable by the masses, yet still entertaining and/or informative is a tough one indeed.

I must admit, I’m a bit guilty myself. If I don’t get the main point of a post within a few minutes of reading, my mind wonders and I end up clicking off to something with more immediate gratification. That is one reason why I try to express the key points up front and get more granular as the post unfolds.

Overall, I think popular society is encouraging laziness of the brain. Perhaps, as bloggers, we have a social responsibility to try to combat laziness of the brain by being the “middle ground” between sound bites and larger, more detailed literary works. We are the appetizer to the main course. We can feed the lazy majority with a tasty snack, but if we are writing effectively, we should be wetting their appetite for more. We then show them the way to the main course. If that makes any sense.

If you are looking for a bit more of a heavy read, I would recommend: Hamlet Batista (although I think ive already seen your face there) and Bill Slawski.