Five Things

19th January 2005

posted in General |

For work reasons (really!) I was browsing over WebPages that Suck. On there, I found a link to Seth Godwin, who thinks he isolated five (or maybe six) things that make or break a weblog:

Candor
Urgency
Timeliness
Pithiness
Controversy
( maybe Utility)

Readers, I have done you wrong; I can only provide candor and the occasional timeliness. Granted, Seth’s talking specifically about “CEO Blogs” (shudder!) but his point alleges to cover all weblogs. So, from now on, I’ll try to be a little better about timeliness. I’ll work on the pithiness and controversy, but honestly, there’s no mark in his list for “family” or “community,” which to me is what this weblogging thing is about. Building our communities. And I’ll work on that, as well.

Oh yeah, and posting the requisite “cute kid” pictures.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 19th, 2005 at 10:51 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

1 On January 19th, 2005, shane said:

You got the kids pictures down.

I just need to figure out how to with my simplified blog software…

2 On January 19th, 2005, shane said:

Oh…and I have always felt that blogs were community/family things. A way to express what is happening in your life, and share your perspective and experiences with others.

I was intrigued to find that many blogs are political commentaries or business driven. many trying to sell themselves as news outlets when they are at best what Rush Linbaugh is to the radio news world…a commentator.

3 On January 20th, 2005, Alli said:

I like your blog, ok I may not always get the technical jargon (but I am closer then I was). I think if you tried to get all 6 things:
Candor
Urgency
Timeliness
Pithiness
Controversy
( maybe Utility)

You would lose the flavor that you have, as well as perhaps go a little nutso, since it would be hard to balence thouse 6 together. I see the point in what he says to a degreee; I could see weblogs with thouse componets being successful but all of them combined. That might be a little bit much. How do you encompass Urgency, Timelessness, Controversy, and Utlity, and if you manage to do it, wouldnt that mean what was controversial didnt change .. UGH. I think you hit it more on the head with community, weblogs allow you to stay close to friends you have, and perhaps get to know them more then you did. They also create community in that you get to get in touch with people that you do not already know. When you boil it down, I think weblogs help turn the internet back in to individuals and not companies.

Alli

4 On January 20th, 2005, Russ said:

Actually what he says is ‘four out of the five or maybe six.’ So you hit the nail on the head, as it were. But your comment about ‘helping turn the internet back in to individuals’ — yesh, I fairly agree with that.