A lot of people put up a links page, a page where they link to other people’s blogs that they read; more common is the blogroll, literally just a list of blogs they recommend. Some of these pages and blog rolls list hundreds of other blogs, and chances are they only do it so that maybe some of those sites link back. I find it difficult enough to keep up with the dozen or so I read so when I see pages with over a hundred links I find it a bit dubious.
But whether or not all of them get read, I still think it is important to read other peoples’ blogs. Obviously you can continue to write a blog without ever seeing somebody else’s posts, though I think you’d obviously be missing out. For one thing, you miss out on one of the best parts of blogs, the amazing community. By not reading any other blogs you are cutting yourself off from this community.
However, more importantly, by not experiencing other people’s work you loose out as a writer and you fall behind in the conversations happening in your community. Speaking from experience, reading the many posts on subjects that interest me with each having a slightly different view pushed me to write my own thoughts on those topics. And by regularly reading other blogs I find myself more intone with what is happening in my areas of interest, which not only helps to challenge my existing ideas but also helps me to form new ones.
So, how many blogs do you read?
I have an RSS reader with which i am subscribed to around 5 or 6 blogs. It used to be about 9 most of which were tech oriented but that isnt so much the case anymore.
What is your main interest regards blogging topics?
Hey Khuram, I used to use RSS a lot, with over 20 blogs in there, then I went on holiday and came back to 300+ articles and haven’t checked it since. I tend to just visit a handful of blogs I have bookmarked, such as mashable, techcrunch, a few BBC blogs etc.
I have varied interests with blogs, I like to kept up to date on the new, in tech, social media etc. I’m also try to read as much on social CRM and other practical uses of social media as a I can these days. I also read a few geeky blogs about sci fi, and comics stuff. Pretty varied stuff really.
Ahh ok. Wait a minute. I didnt realise we were defining Mashable/Techcrunch etc as blogs too. I mean of course, i know that they are, but i thought you meant, personal/individual blogs.
If we’re counting those i have about 18!
I know how you feel about RSS feeds with information load though. What i do is just read them when i have time, and also mark the page as read if i know im never going to be reading it, but ultimately i find it easier to manage.
But whatever works for you ;-)
I kinda mix it up between RSS feeds and reading what I just kinda stumble upon while cruising the net or chatting with people. All in all, I read probably 10 blogs regularly (most of them are tech, gaming, or comic related)… but very rarely to I end up staying up to date on any personal blogs. They just tend to bore me from post to post.
Yeah, it’s difficult to know when a blog with multiple full time writers needs a new label! I tend to use the bigger sites for actual news, as they tend to be faster, and small individual blogs for opinions as they tend to be more insightful and in depth.
I actually read a lot of personal blogs too, but that’s more of a social / entertainment thing.
OK, here’s a question for you.
What is that makes you add that blog or site to your RSS Feed or Favorites?
I.e. What is it that keeps you coming back?
@Mark, I’d completely forgotten about stumble – I tend to not have much time for that any more, but when I do it’s more of a stumbling through the random / humour sections than a “I want to keep up to date about X” thing.
You’re right on the personal blogs, the vast majority of it is dull stuff, there’s a bunch I read because they make me chuckle. But, even then, they tend not to be the “Dear diary” types but instead “the funniest thing happened” or “check out this funny link I found” etc
@Khuram – it’s generally two things:
If I read a post and it’s interesting enough for me to consider reading the other posts I’ll probably bookmark it for future reference.
However, more often I don’t have time to read the full post and just bookmark it to read it later!
I’ve also found Twitter favourites to be very useful for storing links to blog posts, never did get into that whole del.icio.us thing myself.
Yeah. Delicious hasnt really worked for me, as a day to day bookmark manager. Its great for keeping those links that you know you might need to share a few months down the line etc.
You know like “top 10 wordpress themes”. You can never find those links when you desperately need a theme.
Twitter faves for blog posts sounds like a good idea, i should try that. Can you search your twitter faves too?
Hmm, I don’t know of a default way of doing it, I guess you could always subscribe to your favourites rss feed and search that with your rss reader. (http://twitter.com/favorites/USERNAME.rss) But that’s a bit long winded, the favourites system isn’t really a fully featured bookmarking system (yet?)
OK. Well great tip nonetheless ;-)