Blogs still rule

After publishing my post on Network Awesome I received a nice “thank you” email from the site’s founder, Jason Forrest. Jason is an electronic musician who has also worked under the name “Donna Summer” and has held down an on-air shift at the legendary freeform station WFMU.

He agreed to do an email interview with me and so I sent along my questions. I hope to hear back from him soon so I can share his responses.

Sometimes I forget how blogging can help connect people with similar interests. Sure, I might have heard from Jason if I’d only tweeted about Network Awesome (and I did), or posted on facebook (yep, that too) or posted on a discussion forum (nope, didn’t do that). But a blog post still wields a bit more weight. First off, it’s less ephemeral than a tweet, which is mostly lost after a week or two. Furthermore, a blog is longer-form, so you can more fully develop an idea, with richer examples and links than 140 characters or a facebook status update permit.

Twenty years ago folks into retro TV shows might have been able to meet via zines, but it would certainly take longer, with correspondence happening over snail mail. With a blog someone can find you with a simple Google search. Or if you’re writing about someone else’s website, they might find you by checking their referral logs, which list all the sites that referred readers to a site.

In any event, this nice little happenstance further encourages me to keep up with my blogging resumption here at mediageek.

Benign neglect and recoverIng that feeling

Hello, blog. It’s been a while.

It’s a periodic thing where I neglect you for a while. We’ve been together for a decade, and had our ups and downs. I don’t mean to leave you all by your lonesome… But then… Excuses, excuses…. I do.

I do most of my writing these days over at Radio Survivor! generally twice a week. At RS you also get to enjoy the research, wisdom and insights of my co-bloggers Jennifer Waits and Matthew Lasar. Then every other month I poop out some wisdom for Streaming Media magazine. Finally, there’s the twitter. Unfortunately the trusty old media geek blog gets lost in that.

I would love to get back to the feeling I had when I first found blogging in 2000. Then I’d whip out blog posts in a few minutes, quick and snappy. Now I belabor them like mini theses. Instead of open up the browser and posting a quick link or thought, I feel like I have to write a super-useful, fully formed essay. And that attitude is kind of anti-blogging to begin with.

I want to lose this self-defeating attitude and get back to carefree blogging, both herenand at Radio Survivor.

However, this is not a promise. It is a desire. Writing this post on my shiny new iPad after eating my lunch is a first step. Otherwise my typical approach would have been to think about the post as I chew and swallow, making a mental note to write the post later when I’m at my computer, after work…. After I’ve washed the dishes and read some other blogs…. You get the point. The lack of activity here since freaking March is evidence for how that goes.

So, maybe this is a step forward, or maybe you won’t hear from me for another 5 months. Make your bets now.