Every blog is a niche blog because blogging is a niche. It never was and never will be mainstream. Social media began as an attempt to make the spirit of blogging a low lift for the noobs.
Today, you’re talking to an audience that is online, willing to venture outside social media, and opting to actively read content rather than passively listen or watch. That’s far from everyone and that’s okay.
Two years ago I started a niche blog and tech site focused on hardware and software guides for Linux creatives. Even set up a forum because I was fed up with digging through scattered mailing lists and Discord servers for information. I like to think it has helped some people and it gives me a chance to practice writing human-readable documentation.
The content will be discovered just fine. It'll get embedded in the LLMs on the next round of training. Won't be attributed to your blog of course, but an approximation to the information will still get out there.
I sometimes compare Mediawiki vs SharePoint to Web x.0 vs WAIS n Gopher.
One is light on resources, storing just the information with some formatting hints, leaving presentation to standards and the other is SharePoint. The comparison is really about bloat, not functionality, but the two are intertwined.
Social media referral traffic is also dead, mostly due to algorithms that really don’t want users to click out of their websites.
The only exception is Bluesky because it does not have algorithmic feeds, but technical content does not do well as most technical people did not migrate.
I want to start one myself. More of a public journal, but all the same. I keep having fits and starts and things distract me from the habit. That, and I'm never satisfied with my implementation in the end and I always want to try new or different things.
How I miss my script kiddie days of being 15, downloading "nulled" versions of vBulletin off of Limewire and throwing them up on pocket money paid cPanel web hosting account waiting for it to upload on my parents 56K.
Every blog is a niche blog because blogging is a niche. It never was and never will be mainstream. Social media began as an attempt to make the spirit of blogging a low lift for the noobs.
Today, you’re talking to an audience that is online, willing to venture outside social media, and opting to actively read content rather than passively listen or watch. That’s far from everyone and that’s okay.
Two years ago I started a niche blog and tech site focused on hardware and software guides for Linux creatives. Even set up a forum because I was fed up with digging through scattered mailing lists and Discord servers for information. I like to think it has helped some people and it gives me a chance to practice writing human-readable documentation.
how's it going?
> But with the revival of personal blogs well underway
Is it? I haven't seen anyone in my circle return to blogging, nor kids of this generation.
Discoverability is going to be a massive problem, since search engines are dead. Maybe word-of-mouth through social media is enough?
We'll have to get the old (webrings)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring] back in fashion.
The content will be discovered just fine. It'll get embedded in the LLMs on the next round of training. Won't be attributed to your blog of course, but an approximation to the information will still get out there.
Here's a starting point https://peopleandblogs.com/
I had Gemini copy a bunch of text from a personal blog yesterday to answer a query so the content will definitely get read
We could always resurrect WAIS and Gopher.
I sometimes compare Mediawiki vs SharePoint to Web x.0 vs WAIS n Gopher.
One is light on resources, storing just the information with some formatting hints, leaving presentation to standards and the other is SharePoint. The comparison is really about bloat, not functionality, but the two are intertwined.
Social media referral traffic is also dead, mostly due to algorithms that really don’t want users to click out of their websites.
The only exception is Bluesky because it does not have algorithmic feeds, but technical content does not do well as most technical people did not migrate.
I have been blogging for decades, personal and work. I look at traffic patterns and see all the comments coming through.
I don't think personal blogs are back.
While there are ~ millions of blog engines out there, what is the current state of commenting and trackbacks?
If you want to setup a super minimal blog checkout Neat CSS.
https://neat.joeldare.com
I was wondering what the definition of "niche" was going to be:
I think that's a good one to highlight as NOT niche, and niche is much more specific. Like I've had a librarian blog since 1999. Pretty much niche.I want to start one myself. More of a public journal, but all the same. I keep having fits and starts and things distract me from the habit. That, and I'm never satisfied with my implementation in the end and I always want to try new or different things.
I standardized on pure HTML and CSS and wrote about why:
https://joeldare.com/why-im-writing-pure-html-and-css-in-202...
Don't call it a comeback. We've been here for years.
Isn't there a cycle - blogs, aggregators, email lists, back to blogs...?
Niche forums. Federated.
Does that actually exist? I know there are reddit type clones, but I'm yet to see anything that allows me to setup a niche server and only that.
Yeah, there quite a few. Like old-school phpBB is still around[1]. Or, take a look at the list on Wikipedia[2].
Not sure if you're looking for a hosted solution, though. A lot of those would involve you running your own server.
[1] https://www.phpbb.com/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_s...
Discourse also has a (first-party) ActivityPub plugin now!
How I miss my script kiddie days of being 15, downloading "nulled" versions of vBulletin off of Limewire and throwing them up on pocket money paid cPanel web hosting account waiting for it to upload on my parents 56K.
Exploit ridden PHPNuke & e107 CMS too.