One of the really great side effects of being eleven years into a web career is that I have spectacular hindsight. For instance, it’s very clear to me that had we built digg before digg built digg, it would have been a pretty solid investment of time. And there are at least a few domain names that I know would make money if I sold them today, had I just grabbed them back when they were available. These are just a few examples.
Another example might be that know now that I and we should have been blogging years before we were. I hate to even admit that we were still sending Pulp.Mail via email instead of (?) blogging as recent as two years ago. And when we cut from the newsletter to blogs, I’m not even sure we did much to let our 600 or so active subscribers know where we were going. (Perhaps they think we went out of business.)
A simple Gawker post has me thinking how poorly we’ve done. (Link credit to Deane. Thanks Deane.) The topic (overused blog cliches) is stupid, but the writing is clever, and the post spurred an onslaught of comments.
I don’t get an onslaught of comments on posts.
Because of my vast experience with the Internet, I can see that Gawker has been doing something right. I understand that many thousands of active subscribers is typically better than a few hundred, all things being equal.
Couple that with the recent experience of another blog post, and I can see that it’s probably time to start trying to catch up. Catching up with Deane that is. Baby steps.
5 Responses to “Recently acquired hindsight”
If it makes you feel better, I/we (ColeConnect) are even later to blogging than you were. In fact, we’re not even there yet, but will be soon (thanks to an awesome web redesign that you guys are doing for us).
I have a question for you though. Why do you blog here and at electricpulp? I would think that most (if not all) of your posts here would be appropriate for your company blog – especially because a lot of your posts have links back to your company web site. Just curious.
Hey Adam. Funny you ask – I’ve been thinking about it throughout the day. The reasons I split my posts:
1. I’m afraid of potential misinterpretations. I would be posting at a much higher frequency than my business partners or team members, and I wouldn’t want it to give an impression that I’m the guy.
2. I don’t want to throttle personal opinions based on the chance they don’t line up with those of my business partners, team, or clients.
I don’t know if those are good reasons, but that’s the short story. Regardless, we’ll definitely be putting more effort into the Pulp blog moving forward. Our posts haven’t been especially profound lately.
A- I think your reasons are very valid. As a “company blogger” there are many subjects I would like to spout about further, but leave alone.
I’m also looking forward to more Pulp posts … I would think you have some great info and insight to put out.
Hindsight is 20/20 my friend! Not to change the subject, but, there are .com’s, .org’s, .net’s and so on……..where will this end, and how can I take advantage of this? Can I make a .dot? or a .now? or a .whateverIlike?..????
@Jafo – I don’t know much about making up TLDs, but I see from your site you know how to make a .mp3. Say “hi” to the soon-to-be bride.