Focus: The key to a successful blog
My favorite blog sites: 1. Arseblog - Insightful commentary flavored with a bit of humor about Arsenal Football Club, the pride of north London and one of the world's most important soccer teams. The cannon on your chest and your blood running Gooner red...it's a religion. 2. Apartment Therapy - Creative ways to turn ordinary and dull spaces into cool places to live. It's chock full of good ideas for Alchemy Development projects. 3. Altucher Confidential - Follow James Altucher on his journey to create a happy and fulfilling life. He's an entrepreneur who shows how the pains and successes of business can be exhilarating and filled with despair. It takes hard work to break the emotional bonds of money, fear, and crappy people. 4. Dshort - If you want outstanding charts regarding the history of stock markets, GDP, and other economic data, this is the site to visit. The chart of the 1929 Dow, 1989 Nikkei, and 2000 S&P is disturbing and fascinating. 5. Wonkette - I laugh pretty hard whenever I visit this site. The political observations are hilarious. It's like the Onion, but the stories are real. The commentary is usually towards the left side of the political spectrum. What do these sites have in common? Focus. You won't read about apartment decorating on Wonkette. James Altucher might talk about the economy but he's not Jim Cramer shouting boo-yah about XYZ Bancshares. James will, however, talk about what he learned when he was curled up in the fetal position after the hedge fund trades he made went the wrong direction. Arseblog recently mourned the passing of his beloved bassett hound, but it was because the dog helped Arsenal win the 2005 FA Cup. If you want people to read your stuff, you need to focus. I have no focus. I have some interests. I have a little bit of insight in a few areas, but my attention span is way too short to write only about one subject. So I'm just going to write about whatever the hell I want. Consequently, the likelihood of having many people read this blog is rather low. Isn't this the height of our self-centered society? We post information electronically and think that people actually give two shakes of a donkeys tail. I imagine aliens arriving on our planet 100 years from now. They find our data centers and start reading all the crap people have posted online and they have a big freaking laugh. Someone called me a narcissist once. I'm sure writing a blog is the height of narcissism. It's also kind of fun, so what the hell...
