Comment by simonw
Comment by simonw 10 months 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