I am not a professional writer. I have never claimed to be nor intend to be, but I think one of my goals for this blog is to become a better writer. Communication with ourselves and our fellow human beings is a critical part of everyday life.

Recently, one of my articles that was on Digg got a comment, lets say I have a critic.

Here was my thought process on this comment by noamsml:

1. Anger
2. Sadness
3. Happiness

I was a little upset when I first read this comment. Illiterate? Is my writing that terrible? Is my writing so bad that people think I cannot read. Are my thoughts so crazy that they are ridiculous? I was angered and wanted to bury the comment, but I did not. Common sense grabbed a hold of me again. That’s his opinion and as my girlfriend said, “You can’t please everyone“, a truly profound statement at the time.

Next, I go through a phase of sadness, everything I write is junk, complete junk. Why do I even bother? I do enjoy writing, but if I’m not a good writer why should I even try? This stage didn’t last too long, because I think I finally got it. Criticism is how people become writers, better communicators, and well better at anything. People should have varying opinions and I can use this as an opportunity for growth; enter happy stage. So I went back and re-read my article Here comes Linux, Thanks Vista! to critique myself. (more…)

First off let me state that I love the Digg and Reddit community, they constantly provide stellar content. I try to get involved with them, but it requires too much attention and it isn’t very personal. The amount of material that flows through these sites is, quite frankly, mind boggling.

I prefer Reddit’s approval system versus Digg’s, but I like Digg’s UI, which is much cleaner. I think they should join together to form Diggit. I digress.

I don’t think these sites play well with bloggers, if you notice most of the material on these sites is static, which it has to be i.e. the digg/slashdot/reddit effect. You need either a top shelf server (with decent connectivity), major cached content, or a static page to serve up.

See How to handle thousands of users with your blog

Also I think there are some major drawbacks to such community driven sites like Digg and Reddit. It seems that the content for everybody is derived from such a small portion of users, the top users, or whatever they are. Serious questions of gaming do arise in these sites, but none-the-less I enjoy perusing what they have to offer. Some of the coolest articles I’ve read have been on these sites. Also you don’t really need to contribute to benefit from these sites, which is cool for busy IT people.

See Top 10 Things Webmaster should know about the Digg Effect

Here at this site I’ve seen a little traffic from such sites and sure they bring some good traffic momentarily, but the traffic doesn’t stay. They are here and then gone. I don’t feel sites like these build readership, which is what blogging is all about. Your content will get temporary readers, which is a cool feeling as a blogger, but they won’t stay.

Bloggers should focus on networking with other bloggers, this is what web 2.0 is all about. Stay passionate about what you write and see what other people other saying about your topics! Commenting on blogs can help you think of ideas and maybe even inspire people to write about different things. I’m not the definitive source for what bloggers should be doing, but I hope to offer my unique position on various topics such as blogging. :-p

I think the purpose of this post was basically to say, Bloggers you don’t need to be on Digg or Reddit in order to have success. Blog your heart out.

Related: Digg, Reddit