The name: it needed to be snappy and to reflect the purpose.The purpose: to present a paragraph from:
# as wide a range of blogs as possible;
# themed as much as possible;
# mixing known and unknown blogs in a pleasing combination;
The scope: from all over the world, not necessarily Britblog nor Scottish Blog but from everywhere.
Political philosophy: absolutely none, except that the entries must be interesting in themselves, thought proking or both.
Frequency: strangely, when it was twice a week, it took four times as long. This was because a combination of Blogger, my system and my low RAM meant that the post template baulked when the links exceeded 10 and the formatting was done more than twice. Soemtimes the whole post had to be redone.
With the new 3 times a week format, it actually reduces the amount of overall time in the week on Blogfocus by about 40%.
When: it appears on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings, usually around early evening, British time.
Limitations: Obviously there are limitations when one man gathers and collates. I'm always on the lookout for the fresh and quirky, which is the idea behind my own blog and so the Blogfocus fails to be a serious political tome or a home-handywoman's guide. It falls somewhere in between.
Growth: the readership depends on:
# the range of blogs presented and people who view it;
# people who link to it;
# my e-mailing people about it.
E-mailing: this was taking up more and more time, time I should have been visiting people's blogs instead, given limits to overall net time. On the other hand, people liked being individually e-mailed [I never bulk mail] and were more likely to link me, so it's a no win situation. I have to find a solution to this.
Request: to link the Focus. Of course. Only through this will people know about Blogfocus and the range of blogs will expand. When Chris Dillow, Westminster Wisdom, Mr Eugenides, Devil's Kitchen and other good souls link, the number of blogs exponentially increases.
Regrets: few. Maybe that Tim Worstall rarely mentions the Blogfocus.
What's the point? We all surf other blogs but first we must know about them. There are many community schemes going and Blogfocus is just one which expands your blogbase in a less onerous way.
Very important point in the Blogiuniverse for many people James. Hopefully you are getting it to work with your life, rather than have it dominate it. We are all very busy and your little pointers are interesting and helpful. Highly appreciated.
ReplyDeleteJames, Looks good. A couple of questions.
ReplyDelete1) What sort of EMail do you send? Could it be a standard letter but with changable names like the mass mailers use?
2) Have you asked Tim to post a link and explained like you have in this post? Maybe he sees it as competition for his weekly review.
3) Still don't know how you get the time to do all this. What do you do for a living?
Bag, I don't ascribe ill-motives to Tim - he's just too busy, methinks. Still, it's a sadness, as I hold him in high esteem.
ReplyDeleteColin, what you say is the way it must be - it must not rule us but serve an end.