why blog?

Sudhindra Rao Sudhindra Rao Follow May 15, 2012 · 2 mins read
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I have come across too many people who are either not willing to blog, or do not see the point. This blog post is for them.

(Recently, “Elena Yatzeck”:http://pagilista.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-to-become-blogger-in-5-steps.html posted on this subject as well.)

I recently read a one-liner “I see I scorn, I do I regret, I blog to not forget”. (Usually I am turned off by one liners intending to pack everything including the reason for life in minimum words, but this one I like because it is funny enough.)

This above quote is enough motivation to keep me going on my blogging. In the day and age of #fb and #RT it is difficult to get people excited about the value of details and being able to express in elaboration. Blogs come to the rescue.

I experience this loss of details quite a bit. Recently on my “M$ platform based assignment”:http://charlespetzold.com/etc/DoesVisualStudioRotTheMind.html I forgot to blog what we did to make our .NET application development painless. Now when I try to recollect some lessons I learnt I have to depend on my memory which is sloppy about details. I blog to ensure that I have less of these situations and that I can use my experience to my advantage - also maybe readers of my blog will benefit as well.

I would like to encourage more blogging so that I can benefit from your knowledge and learnings.

Here are a few reasons you should consider blogging:

  • Twitter is too short to explain anything in detail.
  • Facebook will not understand when you say a lot without being emotional about it.
  • Your long term memory is not that good - also it is not google searchable.
  • All the short messages are easily lost in your tweetdeck. Google search will yield the desired message but will not provide you the context it appeared in.
  • Blogs are on the web and searchable via google.
  • Blogs can be as elaborate as you like - can be tagged, followed, copied and pasted from, tweeted about, and can turn into articles for publication.
  • Blogs can also be collected and turned into books - for free.
  • Self promotion - “A good post by Jay Fields”:http://blog.jayfields.com/2008/08/be-your-start-up.html
  • Blogs are permanent records(mostly) and they can be used to jog your own memory - or reminisce.

How and where to blog?

  • “Wordpress”:http://www.wordpress.com
  • “Tumblr”:https://xkcd.com/1043/
  • “blogger”:http://www.blogger.com - beware of their weird copyright requirements.
  • “github”:http://www.github.com - “octopress”:http://github.com/octopress.git
  • build your own blog engine and push it to “heroku”:http://www.heroku.com

What are you waiting for? Go write something.

Sudhindra Rao
Written by Sudhindra Rao Follow
Hi, I am Sudhindra, I like to talk about technology and help people build software at a sustainable pace. If you like what you read here follow me on twitter.