One of the things I've been looking at is different blogging styles and trying to figure out which to recommend to beginners, and why. Part 1 will be looking at the styles, and Part 2 will be my thoughts on which to recommend.
- When I learn something new. This tends to be the least commonly updated because new things, or at least new things worthy of discussion, don't happen every day
- When something "big" happens. Releases of new products, service packs, acquisitions, etc.
- About what they are doing. This is done is hyper real time for many via Twitter (bah!), but more commonly about articles written, visits to various events, as well as projects at work where it can be discussed.
- Regular bloggers. They post daily/weekly/etc and pretty much stick to a schedule.
- Really focused. It's either totally about SQL (usually technical) or it's not, and the "nots" don't get posted.
- Not really focused. Tends to have posts about their car and hobbies as much as it is about SQL
- Because they have to. These are fun to try to spot, posts appear forced and are often short.
- Highly technical. Deep, dark analysis of the inner most details.
Think about the blogs you read. Do you read them just for the content? To see what person X is doing? Do you despise off topic posts or enjoy the humanity it brings to the blog? Here's a fun question; for the people that you know that blog, does their blog do a decent job of reflecting their skills and biases? Said differently, let's say you were interviewing me for a job and I mentioned I had a blog. Would reading this blog make you more or less likely to consider me qualified? Desirable?
That last question is where it gets interesting - why do you blog, and what do you hope to achieve? Few of us blog for direction compensation, few of us generate enough traffic to make money on ads, so you're either blogging to support your career (interesting) or blogging the equivalent of a diary (no so interesting?).
