Scott Nesbitt writes:
“Those personal blogs might have been eclipsed by so-called pro blogs, but they’re still out there. The trouble, though, is finding those personal blogs.”
Finding Interesting (Personal) Blogs
Anytime I share my desire for a more personal webspace, I’m very quickly asked, “Well where do you find sites like that?” It’s a valid question, because like Scott said, it’s not exactly easy. Your major search engines are useless in this regard and using social media to discover blogs is not much better.
Luckily, as Scott provides in his post, there are several directories and lists that are being maintained where you can discover personal blogs. And I always recommend, like in the old days, if you find a page you like, be sure to check out their Blogroll/Links page for other sites you might find interesting. Odds are if you enjoy reading a particular blogger’s work, they probably like reading similar bloggers.
I’m constantly updating my Links page and it’s very much a work in progress at this point. I also maintain a Links page on the retro blog I run with my friend Jimmy, Middle-Aged Fat Kids. Those links are more of the pop-culture/retro variety, but still different from your mainstream, no-effort “Here’s a Facebook video to watch” links.
If you have a blog or think I may enjoy a link, please feel free to post it in the comments or email me. I’m always looking for more good content.
I have always struggled with this issue too. The small communities of the web seem to be few and far between.
I won’t proceed to share my blog as I have just started (for the tenth time now? I lost count) with just one post. But it’s nice to find another blogger who isn’t in it just for monetization. It seems quite saddening that people don’t write or blog for the passion of it. Now with AI it has gone from disingenuous to totally artificial.
Perhaps we can initiate our own community of “non-profit writers”
Hey Matt,
I’m totally with you on the idea of for profit bloggers. Its amazing how much trash they put out and now it’s even worth with ChatGPT. I even had an old co-worker text me a few weeks ago to tell me my blog was done for since ChatGPT was released. He wasn’t a tech guy and isn’t a writer, but now he feels he can do everything I can do with less effort. It was said partially in good fun, but I could tell he truly felt that way. Hey, and maybe it can write better than me, but there is definitely something loss when allowing a machine to do it all.
A long time ago, I had a page that featured a website graveyard. I made small tombstones with names of all the various blogs and websites I ran over the years. I wish I still had it. I’ve started and stopped more than anyone. So, don’t feel bad about starting for the tenth time and whenever you are ready to share, I’d love to read it.
I really like your idea of a community of “non-profit writers.” I got to think on this a bit. I feel like this is something that could be done relatively easily.
Hey! Thanks for the response. I actually thought setting up a github to manage the list and categorize may be the easiest way to manage and get going.
I started one, feel free to let me know your feedback. Perhaps we can start here, and it makes it easy for others to contribute to the list.
https://github.com/uxai/non-profit-bloggers/
Hey Matt,
I like it! I went ahead and made a GitHub account to list my site. I think it’s a great way to get started since a lot of the tech bloggers tend to be non profit and they’ll be familiar with GitHub. Then if it works it could expand from there.
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