"Some people are genuinely uninterested in writing things that people want to read – as an example try reading some Hegel."

I squirted my coffee on this one. He does practice what he preaches, i.e. has a unique and memorable voice.

My take is: good writing and unique voice is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a successful blog. Without these, you won't get much readership other than Google directs (maybe). But no amount of cool writing will get your Advanced Algorithms blog read if it doesn't have useful and interesting informational nuggets.

The problem, as I see it, that a lot of people face trying to write a technical blog is how to divide up what they're explaining into digestible chunks (size dependent on audience, Terence Tao's blog chunk size will be different than your high school math blog's) and present them intermingled with good language. In effect, the language (unique voice, anecdotes, etc.) is the carrier and the chunks is the information and the audience dictates the channel capacity.

Blogging isn't the only way to write and publish the content.

The way I do it is to write 500 words a day on some random subjects for no reason other than it's "interesting" on published it on a single page called Notes and Thought. Then I continuously work the various areas of that pages, adding new paragraph, fixing grammar mistakes, and so on. Eventually, one of the section in my page will grow into a essay. When an essay is spun off, I also work on the essay to make sure it's complete-sounding and all polished up. However, they are never actually finished or frozen in time, and they will be continuously updated for the rest of their lifespan. Notes and Thoughts also linked any spun off essay with the original section and an abstract describing the content of the new essay.

Blog posts are temporal in nature, and they never get updated continuously. So a hundred year from now, the blog post will say the same thing, still feel amateurish, and also horrifically outdated.

If you want to know what I am working on: http://kibabase.com/articles/notes-and-thoughts

Blogging is more like a conversation that's very time specific. While mine is more like a book or an encyclopedia of my mind.

Blogging + RSS is interesting. Blogging - RSS isn't as much, because you need to get people to come back over and over again. And there isn't a lot of consumer adoption for RSS. "Publishing" isn't enough any more because it assumes that distribution is built in, when it just isn't.

I made my blog -- http://nowiknow.com -- into an email newsletter for this very reason. Two+ years in I'm at 80,000 subscribers. It's doable.

I had a thought related to this earlier today. What if I wrote for myself one year ago? Meaning, what if I considered the questions I had a year ago and articulated the answer back to myself at that point in time?

A friend shared a great bit wisdom a few months back: there will always be someone who is one step in front of you and one step behind you.

Since I look to writing to help others, what if I write for that person who is one step behind (i.e. myself one year ago)?

Great advice. I think your first point is spot-on: Don't Blog... It’s really, really hard to do well in a consistent fashion.

But that should be followed by: "Guest Blog" (or something similar). Your energy and creativity can still be appreciated by a captive audience in someone else's venue. You can get many of the benefits of blogging without the need for (daily / weekly / whatever) commitments... and make friends or build reputation in the process.

As an example, I run a popular robotics blog myself [1]. Yet, I've also contributed guest articles for IEEE Spectrum [2], which can have some cool side benefits... like op-ed style pieces in academic publications [3].

[1] http://www.hizook.com/

[2] http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardwar...

[3] http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6...

One of the best points in the whole post, I think this point should have been front-and-center: blogging isn't for everyone. Well that, and 'why are you writing'? My wife writes and publishes content, for example, because she loves designs and sharing it with the world though it's mostly all written from her perspective. I write because I don't want to forget something; one of the best ways to learn/remember is to teach ... thus I (attempt to) teach.

I believe there is something missing from the post though, maybe I missed it though: people shouldn't expect to become instant blog millionaires by writing a few posts here and there about just anything. Consistency (in voice and sometimes in topic) plus a schedule really do make this all work. Except just like the rabbit and the turtle: this is a race best won slowly.

I've started blogging about the mobile startup space with the idea of hopefully developing a legitimate news resource. Feature stories of my own volition are one thing but "What to write about on a daily basis that hasn't already been covered exhaustively in TC, Mashable etc?" is the question that pops up in my mind most often. I'm still working on the editorial balance between the two. The last thing I want to do is piggyback off of other, more successful blogs.

Great post Dan. Wonderful to see the evolution of you, your writing and the blog.

Keep it up!

I think I will be taking your advice to heart, Dan.

>Don’t blog.

Every time I see a post like this I feel horrible about not blogging, but it's nice to hear that... I really don't think I'm cut out for it.

Just wondering, but how do you like being on Posterous, as opposed to any other platforms you may have used?

I started with Wordpress and plan on sticking with it. But I've since made a tumblr for my photos and NYC-related tidbits...and find it much easier to blog on a whim on Tumblr than on Wordpress, despite the excellence of the latter platform. It's kind of amazing to me how the simplicity and constrictiveness of a platform, such as Tumblr (and Twitter, for that matter), makes it more inviting to consistently participate in. And I'd say consistent publishing -- especially in the face of apathy or silence -- is a huge part of building readership.

Dear Dan Shipper, I despise your blog.