Chris Armstrong, advocating for a digital garden over a blog structure:
A blog structure places the highest emphasis on ‘what’s new’… but what’s new has had the least scrutiny and little authority.
Robin Rendle linked to Armstrong’s post recently and reading it reminded me of my 2011 post The blog format is ready for disruption.
In that post, which is now nearly 14 years old, I argue that the structure of reverse chronological lists of posts on homepages wasn’t the best way to showcase what a blog is about, the type of content you’ll find there, or as a means of exploring through the archives.
I think we’ve seen some disruption since those days. Many homepages of personal blogs are more like about pages than they used to be. This way you can read a little about the author and then you can choose to click through to the list of blog posts. I think this is good. But, it doesn’t solve all of the issues I brought up then.
In that post I also discussed monetization, feeds, memberships, newsletters… it feels like the exact same world we live in today. I suppose I still feel that the blog format is ready for, and in need of, disruption.
My current homepage, similar to then, has a bit about me. And it also has posts, images, and projects. The posts on the homepage are from my featured tag. I use that as a way to curate which posts show up on the homepage. At least that is something but it isn’t a great solution.
Anyone have any ideas?
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