Blog, link-blog… or both - my new blogging test

When I moved my blog from old “MichaelNozbe.com” domain to this one, I decided to actually create two blogs - this one… and a Link-blog at Links.MichaelSliwinski.com in order to be able o post links to the things that might interest you on my own platform instead of using apps like “Buffer” or “Tumblr”. After three months of this experiment I feel like experimenting even more :-)

I’m a big fan of John Gruber, Marco Arment and MG Siegler… as well as Michael Hyatt, Fred Wilson and Seth Godin

The first three guys run very successful link-blogs - I usually read their blogs more for their comments and opinions than for the links they post to. Yes, I do click on the links very often or add them to my “Read-it-later” app but their comment is what counts. I like it and I’m tempted to try the same… On the other hand the other three guys run very successful blogs with original content and I want to be able to post as frequently and as thoughtful as they do… what to do then?

You seem to like my link-blog, too

Over the last three months I posted many links on my link-blog and a few original posts on this blog. What I found out was that although you appreciated my posts a lot, you actually engaged more with my link-blog posts - I received more likes, retweets and questions about my link-blog posts - you appreciated things I was linking to and my comment (I hope :-)

Anyway, I like doing both - I like posting links to interesting sites and adding my comment… and I like writing original blog posts. That’s why I decided to stop posting on the link-blog and start posting links on this very blog. That’s right - for the next 30 days this blog will be a mix of a typical blog and a link-blog - and you tell me what you think about it.

Following the Gruber’s path

John Gruber on his famous blog: “Daring Fireball” posts mainly links but sometimes posts original content. He distinguishes the original content with an asterisk.

I’ll do something similar - my original blog posts will have a “tick” (✔) sign next to the blog post title and usually will be a little longer. And usually with an original graphic (drawn by yours truly in Paper app on the iPad)

Posting Frequency

I’ll try to commit to writing at least three original blog posts a week (never more than one per day) - with a tentative schedule like this:

• on a Monday (like today) - original blog post about productivity, business and/or life
• on a Wednesday - book of the week (my book review) or Productive! Show episode
• on a Friday - original blog post about iPadonly, Passion or Teleworking - (as I’m writing books on these topics)
• any day else - when I feel like writing more, I will - I reserve myself the right to do so :-)

I’ll try to post around 4-6 links per day - around every 4 hours or so - I think this frequency strikes a balance between posting quite often but not too often to get you tired. Again, I’ll post a link with a short paragraph with my comment or opinion.

At the end of each month I’ll post links to all of the original blog posts to make sure you haven’t missed anything.

Questions: How often do you post on your blog? How often do you want me to? Which topics do you want me to link to? Have you subscribed to my blog or my Facebook page?