Technology Over Here

Technology * More on writing

2008-12-27T00:40:00.001-08:00

Then again, not all technology blogs have such great writing. Just realized that when I talk about large technology blogs, I'm really mostly thinking about my favorite one. It's been a while since I've even looked at another tech blog. Can't quite remember the last time even.

And I think what did it for me were two things. One was the quality of writing. I've already talked about how my favorite tech blog isn't just about breaking tech news, or coming out with some device review. The writing there itself is funny and witty enough to be worth skimming through on an almost daily basis.

In contrast, other tech blogs focus mostly on the nuts and bolts of devices, and focus more on a dispassionate reporting of technological developments. Not that that's bad of course, because it's not. But if given a choice between a tech blog that informs, and one that both informs and entertains, well, the choice is pretty clear to me.

Technology * The writing

2008-12-26T00:31:00.000-08:00

The other great thing about some of these large technology blogs (not all, but some) is the fact that the writing really is top notch. It's funny. It's witty. There're the occasional references to old video games, easter eggs, and other sometimes obscure but sometimes not so technology references.

The writing really is well done. It becomes so that I visit, not just to find out what next great device to watch out for, but also to be entertained. The posts aren't usually that long even. We're talking maybe a few paragraphs at a time. Usually with a picture, sometimes of the device or software in question, other times of something tangential or spoofy. Yet the fact that the posts aren't all that long also works to the advantage of the large blog because, well, sometimes it can be a real pain to have to scroll down through paragraphs of technology detail (even if it is well written). Short paragraphs work great, especially for someone like me who can have a pretty short attention span.

Technology * Breaking tech news

2008-12-25T00:24:00.000-08:00

So since these large technology blogs have such a wide readership base, most of them presumably interested in technology, then whenever someone from its audience hears a new rumor, or stumbles across yet another picture of something that'll be coming out soon, then the large blogs usually gets alerted to this and pretty soon, it begins to develop a reputation (if it hadn't had it already) for being one of the first sites to come out with breaking technology news.

It's a bit of a virtuous cycle really. Blog is large. Blog has a lot of writers. Lots of writers post often. Lots of people visit often, to read this large number of posts. These people become regular readers. These regular readers, since there're a lot of them, come across breaking tech news. They report said news to large blog. Large blog breaks the news. Large blog becomes one of those sites to go to for breaking tech news. Even more readers visit, and become regular visitors. And so on and so forth.

Technology * Large blogs

2008-12-24T00:18:00.000-08:00

I'm actually rather fond of those technology blogs which are run by teams. Quite a number of them out there. One reason I like them so much is the sheer number of posts they churn out daily and weekly. Several in a day usually. And I like that because I know that if I visit the site today, and then again tomorrow, I'm pretty sure that there will be more interesting new things to read about technology and gadgets when I visit again.

Also, the sheer size of these technology blogs creates opportunities for scale, of a sort. For example, since these blogs are so big, then a lot of tipsters, you know who they are, those people who come out with the blurry photos of the next big thing in consumer technology. These tipsters head for these large technology blogs when they want to release something into the wild. It's either that or the people who read the large blog alert its authors about the newest or most recent rumor or (maybe photoshopped) image.

Technology * Blogs

2008-12-22T23:57:00.000-08:00

I don't really see this as a technology blog which keeps track of the latest hardware released, or new gadget, or piece of software, or something similar. After all, if you're into that kind of blog, you have a huge number of them to choose from. And after a while, you might end up just picking a favorite anyway. That's what I did.

I think that, at first, I had myself a whole bunch of technology blogs that I visited. You probably already know them. Big names in the blogging space. They're mostly group blogs even, where you have a whole team of people writing posts, so they can release quite a lot of posts each day.

Then, you also have the occasional technology blog run by just one person, or at least someone who appears to be just one person. Doesn't quite release as many blog posts in one day, but that's alright because there's quite a lot of information being provided by just the one person.