The latest edition of Matthias Ott's Own Your Web (which I recommend subscribing to!) points out that there are a lot of blogs out there, but they can be hard to discover. As a vessel to help others discover blogs, Matthias recommends curating a blogroll.

Blogrolls are great. I have one too! But I don't think they're enough. The visibility of a blogroll is limited to people that visit your blog and are curious enough to poke around. The content of a blogroll is limited to blogs you consistently follow, but individual posts are worth sharing too.

Lots of blogs do this: Chris Coyier occasionally shares links his thoughts intertwined, Freek's blog is a mix of original articles and links, and I've come across a lot of unexpectedly interesting articles through larger blogs like Daring Fireball or Kottke. Some have a separate RSS feed for sharing content, like Jim Nielsen's notes.

In the same edition of Own Your Web, Matthias shared a link to an article titled Curation is the last best hope of intelligent discourse . Joan Westenberg argues that with the rise of AI and algorithms, human curation is more important than ever.

Human curators can distinguish between nuanced arguments, recognise cultural subtleties, and evaluate the credibility of sources in ways that algorithms cannot. This human touch is essential for maintaining the integrity of our information ecosystem. It serves not only as a filter for quality but also as a signal for meaningful and trustworthy content amidst the overwhelming noise generated by AI systems.

Aside from its importance, an algorithm is not going to surprise you. I could listen to Spotify's Discover Weekly recommendations all day, but my taste wouldn't widen.

So, go forth and multiply content! Share what you find interesting, start a conversation, surprise your readers, and let the small web flourish!

From Manuel Moreale's lovely People & Blogs series interview with Chris Coyier:

Redesigning your personal website is one of life’s great pleasures.

Isn't it? My fingers are itching.

I always enjoy reading about other people's processes.

99% of the time, this is how my note-taking process goes:

• I’m catching up on my RSS feed (on my phone in the Reeder app)
• I read something that strikes me as interesting, novel, or insightful.
• I copy/paste it as an blockquote into a new, plain-text note in iA writer.
• I copy/paste the link of the article into iA writer.
• I finish reading the article and copy/paste anything else in the article that strikes me.
• I add my own comments in the note as they pop into my head.
• I move on to the next article in my RSS feed.
• Repeat.

And:

I like to let my notes sit for a couple days (or even weeks). I find that if I come back to a note and still find it interesting/insightful that means it’s worth keeping, so I put in the work of cleaning it up and publishing it.

Time is underestimated as a filter for content.

I've attended this talk twice this year and it hit just as hard the second time. Happy to see it available online. Start watching already!

It's been an odd few days with the changes on Reddit and Twitter – the only two major social media platforms I browse.

Platforms are great portals for discovery, but a guarantee for longevity is not their strong suit. And while the fediverse is interesting, my Mastodon experience feels more like a detox than something that stands on its own.

Read more

A lovely essay by Henrik Karlsson on writing, blogging, and the power of the internet.

When writing in public, there is a common idea that you should make it accessible. This is a left over from mass media. Words addressed to a large and diverse set of people need to be simple and clear and free of jargon. […]

That is against our purposes here. A blog post is a search query. You write to find your tribe; you write so they will know what kind of fascinating things they should route to your inbox. If you follow common wisdom, you will cut exactly the things that will help you find these people.

Robert Heaton shares 39 bullets to improve your blogging. A few of my favorites:

Choose a few people whose style you like and copy it as hard as you can without infringing on any intellectual property. I aim for a combination of the Economist, Paul Krugman, and Terry Pratchett.

If you need a quick name for a generic fictional character, consider using one from a culture or gender that you usually wouldn't. Even if you don't believe that representation in the media matters, you've surely got to concede that there's still a chance that it might, and that the cost of sometimes calling your imaginary computer programmers Julianna is zero.

It's fine to spend 10, 20, 30 minutes staring into space when your plan for the day says that you're meant to be writing.

It is admittedly even better to spend that 30 minutes spamming down any old nonsense that you can refine later, or that at least helps get you mentally unblocked.

Read all 39 tips on robertheating.com.