I would call myself a general connoisseur of what the web has to offer, and more often then not its one giant talk radio station. One thing that gets me is what is and is not a blog. Most people don't care, and that's fine. They read op-ed pieces on the internet, in the paper, a blog is just the format for said op-ed. Sometimes its the author's (or author group's) personal opinion about something current on the web, usually technology. Sometimes its just writing for the sake of detox. And I don't have a problem with any of that. What I do have a problem with is when people create a blog with their namesake, and not the only writer. Anderson Cooper and John C. Dvorak are the best examples of this. I love both of their work, great writers and have a lot to say. But when you have other op-ed writers making posts just for the sake of being current, when do you lose your identity?
I almost hate reading their column not because I don't like reading whats written, but sometimes I read a full article only to discover in the by-line its not even them! This is probably is something in the realm of stuff-only-Justin-cares-about but it's frustrating all the same. Don't sacrifice identity to keep your page fresh.
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I’m now sure how Cooper does it but I can assure you that my writers are all alter egos to an extreme. I say this because much of what I was posting was suggested by this group. It dawned on me to have them post directly and I trained them and we have meetings so we are all on the same page regarding themes and style. The fact is these guys self-selected and 99-percent of the posts they manage are posts I would do, have thought of doing, or was mad that I didn’t do.
What I learned from doing a side blog at Boing-boing to get me started was that it is important to today’s readers to have a lot of activity on the blog. I’ve managed to do this without actually letting the blog go off in some weird direction. I can assure you that this is all very “Dvorak” in content no matter who is doing the posting.
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