Jeff Atwood's School of Blog Writing, Episode 999

[mouser]

Somehow Jeff Atwood, who might be expected to be mostly good at programming, has become one of the best examples of how to write a good blog.  His essays just seem to hit all the right notes in terms of content, size, style, you name it.  So when he gives tips on blog writing, you'd be wise to listen..

I started out in early 2004 as a blog skeptic. But over the last four years, I've become a born-again believer. In that time, I've written almost a thousand blog entries, and I've read thousands upon thousands of blog entries. As a result, I've developed some rather strong opinions about what makes blogs work so well, and what makes blogs sometimes not work so well.

I'd like to share some of the latter with you today, in a piece I call Thirteen Blog Clichés...

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000834.html

[nudone]

read it all - very wise words.

[Grorgy]

i read it as well, and I agreed particularly with the bit about the name and who/what you are, even if it’s a good read, or a fun rant it loses credibility for me if the writer wont say a bit about themselves

[tinyvillager]

I agree with the too much flair thing.I sometimes don't think having your content submitted to social communities is
a good thing,cause some social communities are filled up to their eyeballs with drive-by ass-hats.


P.S.
Jeff Atwood is an interesting writer.

[Lashiec]

Pretty good. I agree with most points, which I feel are annoying when they're present in a blog, particularly flair (hate all those icons around) and blogging about blogging complete with mindless link propagation (most of the times they're directly intertwined). The last point is the one I feel most difficult to avoid, as these days everybody seems to be talking about everything, and it's difficult to come up with something new or a fresh and thoughtful look onto something "old".

Not so keen on point 8. Of course, most blogs about personal matters are plain boring and uninteresting. Perfect examples: Xiaxue or Dooce, perhaps two of the most dreadful and frivolous blogs I've ever encountered. And look, they're quite successful despite this. On the other hand, one of the blogs I visit daily (and the number is small) is written by a girl a bit younger than me, talking about things about his personal life, but without revealing every simple detail about it, pretty elegant and well written, a delight

EDIT: I forgot to say that the image that comes with point 12 it's hilarious