{"id":3879,"date":"2012-09-14T10:03:37","date_gmt":"2012-09-14T10:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/?p=3879"},"modified":"2012-09-14T10:04:59","modified_gmt":"2012-09-14T10:04:59","slug":"21-things-youll-learn-from-blogging-for-10-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/21-things-youll-learn-from-blogging-for-10-years\/","title":{"rendered":"21 Things You&#8217;ll Learn From Blogging for 10 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"dyers\" src=\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/-1HE-UIsY-7Q\/UFMAjQvbYuI\/AAAAAAAAFxY\/9452cTV-wuo\/s320\/beard201029.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I was hanging out on the web this morning, looking at beard styles, as you do, when I came across a guy called John Dyers, who owns <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=types+of+beard&amp;hl=en&amp;safe=off&amp;prmd=imvns&amp;tbm=isch&amp;tbo=u&amp;source=univ&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=IgFTUNORNePA0QXrkIDYDw&amp;ved=0CBwQsAQ&amp;biw=1599&amp;bih=789\">&#8220;types of beard&#8221; as a Google image search<\/a>. He is a beard blogger, arguably <em>the<\/em> beard blogger. When TV news is looking for beard commentary, he is the guy. He turned the beard into what Hugh MacLeod calls <a href=\"http:\/\/gapingvoid.com\/so\/\">a social object<\/a>. He went on a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dyers.org\/blog\/beards\/beard-types\/\">quest for every beard type<\/a>. Any good protagonist of course needs a quest.<\/p>\n<p>Now- I am a relative neophyte when it comes to blogging, only having 8 years under my belt, but I certainly recognise most of this excellent list.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dyers.org\/blog\/archives\/2012\/01\/10\/dyers-org-turns-10-thats-60-in-web-years\/\">A Few Things I\u2019ve Learned In A Decade Of Blogging<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The web loves lists.<\/li>\n<li>If Mother Theresa had a blog, someone out there would send her hate mail. You\u2019re not Mother Theresa. You\u2019ll get worse.=<\/li>\n<li>You can say 2+2=4 and someone is going to call you a conspiracy theorist who has been bought by the mainstream media.<\/li>\n<li>Most of what you hope will do well won\u2019t, and you will shake your head at what succeeds.<\/li>\n<li>Proper tagging and promotion can more than make up for bad writing and lack of content.<\/li>\n<li>Over time, blogging will turn you into a writer with no time to actually write.<\/li>\n<li>Beware of bloggers who blog about blogging. There is a good chance that they are salesmen selling sales seminars.<\/li>\n<li>Deadlines are more important than perfection because writing is never done perfect.<\/li>\n<li>Write short, scannable text.<\/li>\n<li>The web is fickle.<\/li>\n<li>Give before you ask.<\/li>\n<li>There are secret cabals of savvy folks out there who cross promote articles for each other to drive traffic. They sometimes work.<\/li>\n<li>Blogging means that you will never be able to tell a story without someone cutting you off and saying that they read it already.<\/li>\n<li>People you\u2019ve never met will feel like they know you, but most of the time you\u2019ll wonder if anyone\u2019s really out there.<\/li>\n<li>Stats can be exciting, but they really don\u2019t matter.<\/li>\n<li>You need to promote your posts, but promoting your own posts rarely works.<\/li>\n<li>Your blog can get you in the paper and on TV. But, then what?<\/li>\n<li>You can have your face circle the web for years and no one will recognize you on the street.<\/li>\n<li>Whatever you publish in anger will be embarrassing in a couple of years.<\/li>\n<li>You can be a big beard freak at the top of Google stats and there will be people will still want to hire you.<\/li>\n<li>If your blog is not a labor of love, your going to have a hard time defining its success.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It was lovely to read the post, which felt like a message from an old friend- the old friend in question being blogging itself. I was reminded what it used to be like, before 140 character status updates on other people&#8217;s networks. John clearly became a really good writer in his ten years. What long time blogger won&#8217;t recognise the valedictory notes of pipe and slippers?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Now that the site is in its golden years, it\u2019s sluggish and lazy, sleeping in a recliner covered in Cheetos. It occasionally snores itself awake long enough to drop something funny or facial hair related before drifting off again\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Thanks John!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was hanging out on the web this morning, looking at beard styles, as you do, when I came across a guy called John Dyers, who owns &#8220;types of beard&#8221; as a Google image search. He is a beard blogger, arguably the beard blogger. When TV news is looking for beard commentary, he is the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9wfjh-10z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}