Thursday, October 2, 2008

Quality vs. Quantity

That's the big question for every blogger, really. Should I do one or two huge substantive posts or seven quick hits? Should I run top 10 lists or embed viral video in order to drive traffic, or should I set myself up as some Wise Voice who only speaks when there is something worth being said? In an ideal world I'd put up ten thickly substantive posts a day, but that obviously doesn't happen. In reality, I go back and forth on that kind of stuff depending upon how busy I am and what the news dictates.

Forgive the meta-moment, but here's some insight into those issues from the blogger's point of view.

And yes, it's a Slate article. Yeah, I slagged on them yesterday, but I was probably being a bit overbroad. There's a lot of content over there. Some is good. Some isn't. It's just like anyplace else.

2 comments:

Jay said...

Don't have time to click through to the artcile, but as someone who reads via RSS reader, I'd rather have one or two substantive posts per day. If I was checking for updates manually, I'd probably like more, shorter posts. There are a lot of volume posters (TBL, Deadspin, With Leather) but I enjoy the less frequent, more thoughtful ones best (FJM, Shyster, JoePo). During a busy day at work (i.e. today), I hate looking up and seeing 65 unread posts. At that point, the "thoughtful" ones take precedence.

tHeMARksMiTh said...

I guess it depends. It's always a good thing to have a variety (the spice of life). It's nice to have something short and funny to read, but other times, I want to hear what the person has to say about something. Sometimes snark hits right at the point without further explanation. Other times it's only a vague condemnation of something but lacks substance to support it. I agree that it's hard to push either. Sometimes, I try to write something substantive, if only to prove to myself that I'm not some hack job making comments without any evidence. Other times, I either don't have the time or energy, or I just happen to think of the right comment to make my point (this is hard and unusual for me). In the end, I guess it just depends on who you are and how you look at baseball. If you're into analyzing baseball on stats and strategy, I don't want a smart-ass comment to be the end of it. If you're just commenting on something someone said or did related to baseball, smart-ass comments work well. After that long, rambling passage, I'll just say that I like variety.