Comment by simonw
Comment by simonw 4 days ago
The fact that so few people blog these days makes blogging even more influential than it used to be.
You can establish yourself as something of a global expert on some topic just by writing about it a few times a month over the course of a year!
Don't expect people to come to your blog. Practice https://indieweb.org/POSSE - Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere - post things on your blog and then tweet/toot/linkedin/submit-to-hacker-news/share-in-discord etc.
Also, don't worry too much about whether you get traffic at the time you write something. A lot of the reputational value comes from having written something that you can link people to in the future. "Here are my notes about that topic from last year: LINK" - that kind of thing.
There's a lot to be said for writing for its own sake, too. Just writing about a topic forces you to double-check your understanding and do a little bit more research. It's a fantastic way of learning more about the world even if nobody else ever reads it.
POSSE is the way.
I don't have a blog, but I POSSE by keeping stuff I write in Obsidian.
The internet is a circular loop of "engagement", the same crap comes up everywhere. People as recommendations for the same stuff, argue about the same things.
I got tired of rewriting the same thing from memory so now I have it pre-written (And sourced in some cases) in Obsidian. I can just copy-paste from there with minor modifications and updates and spend less energy in shooting down the most common misconceptions.
Might turn it into a blog later, but I've tried it a few times and I always end up bikeshedding about blog engines and themes and deployment :D