Another thought: blogging as described (intro sidebar, etc.) requires a certain amount of technical expertise. Not that it’s difficult to learn, mind you, but for an author more focused on the topic (say, knitting) than the medium might have different challenges/shotcomings.

I think that you’re absolutely correct about focus. I have realigned my site recently, creating a (almost) pure tech / business focus, and have leveled up my readership by a significant amount. Since that’s happened, I’ve been very anxious about posting any personal or political content, and will probably keep it that way. Not everyone can be Jason Kottke.

Guess it’s time to either fire up a ‘vanity’ site for my general journaling, or rekindle the old LiveJournal account.

As for your own aspirations, and idea at all on what you’d focus on?

Josakana: That’s what I was pressing him on for his focus. And I think he has a good answer – he’s a tech guy who’s successfully made the transition into executive management, and he wants to share his experience with other techies. I’ve enjoyed reading his insights so far.

I sometimes wonder if I should start a new blog. Pick a focus and try to seed a community with it, leaving this one for my general ramblings, and maybe using LiveJournal for journal purposes. Haven’t figured out what a good focus would be yet, though. Whatever it is, I’d probably also use it as the seed for a book.

I think of myself as having at least three blogs. There’s my public blog, on which I post research findings, and there’s my private blog, in which I talk about if I should dye my hair green or blue, and apparently piss everyone off when I bitch about librarians, and then there’s the sooper-private bit, where I blog about how I’m incapable of getting any work done and I’m a failiure at all I attempt. Or whatever. Each serves different functions; I’d like to do more on the first, including more speculative stuff — which currently goes into the mid-level blog — but it’s worth figuring out what he things he could do with it, and why he might want to do it in the first place.

ps. And, importantly, for whom.

I don’t recall where I read it, but it was a year or so ago, and it’s “felt” about right since then, both for my own pointless, irregular blog and others.