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November 21, 2005
Blog Mitosis Predicted
One of the issues I have struggled with as a blogger is the tension between two different styles of blog posting: "linking" versus "thinking." A linking blog, as the name implies, is primarily composed of short posts linking to interesting articles elsewhere on the 'net. Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit) is perhaps the best practitioner of this art. A thinking blog, on the other hand, is comprised of original, often quite long essays, where links are only used to document sources or provide further information. My favorite example of the thinking style blog was Steven Den Beste's blog USS Clueless. (Unfortunately, Steven appears to have retired from "serious" blogging.)
Like many bloggers, I tend to do a little of both, which can be problematic. If I focus on doing original writing, it is hard to find the time to read and link to other important developments. If I just link to what I find topical and/or amusing, my blog turns into a not very sucessful imitation of Instapundit. (Echopundit? I wonder if anyone has taken that name...)
In terms of format, this mix of styles can also pose problems. If I spend several days researching and writing a story that I feel pretty good about, I hate to see it slide down the chronological totem pole, slowly buried by subsequent posts (often never to be seen again). But multicolumn or other formats that would isolate "long shelf life" articles are too complicated and require too much messing with HTML and the finer points of web page design.
Well, I think I've found a potential solution. Or, more accurately, I stumbled across someone else who appears to have developed a solution. Tim Langeman's solution is brilliant in its simplicity: have one blog for each style! Even better, have each blog highlight links to recent posts in the other blog in the sidebar.
I have therefore resolved, as soon as I find the time to figure out the implementation, to split Spartacus into two blogs: say, for the time being at least, Spartacus Thinks and Spartacus Links. (Truth in advertising is the last refuge of the unimaginative mind.) We'll see how the experiment works out, but I think this idea has promise
November 21, 2005 at 06:05 PM | Permalink
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