--- title: "Midblog Crisis" date: 2005-11-17 author: "Richard MacManus" categories: - name: "ReadWriteWeb" url: "/category/readwriteweb.md" tags: - name: "2005" url: "/tag/2005.md" --- # Midblog Crisis Forgive me, it’s time for an introspective blog post. Lately I feel I’ve been in a bit of a blog slump with Read/WriteWeb. My numbers are still good, but I’m not happy with the quality of my recent posts here. I set very high standards for myself and I get disappointed when I don’t meet them. Yesterday produced an example of what I consider a poor R/WW post: [Gawker Strikes Deal With Yahoo](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002942.php). Admittedly it was a rushed post, because I had other things to do, but that’s no excuse for not doing more groundwork and analysis before I posted it. By contrast, later that day I saw an excellent post by Mike Arrington from [TechCrunch](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.techcrunch.com/) on the same topic: [Is the Gawker-Yahoo Deal Important?](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/11/16/is-the-gawker-yahoo-deal-important/) Mike’s post pointed out something that I would have known had I done more groundwork, that Yahoo is not actually linking through to Gawker sites. Mike also had new and useful analysis – and questions – about the Yahoo-Gawker deal. I ended up emailing Mike and congratulating him on the post, which in my view is illustrative of the outstanding work he’s doing with TechCrunch.com currently. TechCrunch is a valuable resource for people in our industry – and is being noted as such by people or sites I read and respect. My blog is hopefully a valuable resource too, but I need to return to doing the things that made it popular to begin with. To find out what is *really* my niche, I decided to check what people have actually been reading from R/WW. Between 10 Oct 05 (when I first started using [ Measure Map](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.measuremap.com/)) and 17 Nov 05, the following were my most visited posts: 1\. [Web 2.0 Office](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002814.php) (posted 2 Sep 05) 2. [Microsoft Livens Up Web 2.0](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002917.php) (posted 1 Nov 05) 3. [Web 2.0 Workgroup](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002880.php) (posted 10 Oct 05) 4. [craigslists gets heavy with Oodle](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002891.php) (posted 14 Oct 05) 5. [Web 2.0 Definition and Tagging](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002645.php) (posted 1 Feb 05) 6. [Portals 2.0 flesh out their product lines](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002932.php) (posted 10 Nov 05) 7. [Microsoft Announces The Live Era](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002915.php) (posted 1 Nov 05) 8. [Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-up, 31 Oct – 6 Nov 2005](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002924.php) (posted 6 Nov 05) 9. [My Million Dollar Blog](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002877.php) (posted 8 Oct 05) 10. [Web 2.0 Naysaying reaches an all-time high (or is it low)](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002905.php) (posted 21 Oct 05) Interesting that none of the above posts are “scoops” and only a couple are announcements or news. I would classify 6 of the above top 10 posts as **true analysis** of which I’m proud of – and 5 of those are in the top 6. I think this shows that my place in the tech blogosphere is as an analyst and commentator on Web 2.0 trends. I think I’ve been trying to do too many newsy type posts lately and focusing too much on getting onto [tech.memeorandum](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://tech.memeorandum.com/). In fact, it turns out I did get to the top of tech.memeorandum a couple of times with analytical posts *that I didn’t expect to make it there.*[Microsoft Livens Up Web 2.0](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002917.php) and [ Portals 2.0 flesh out their product lines](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002932.php) were both number 1 on the Top of the Meme Pops for a time. I think there’s a lesson in that for me – just write well thought out and insightful posts and tech.meme will reward the best of them. I also have plans to start digging deeper with my analysis and use the products I’m talking about more thoroughly (hat tip [Ben Barren](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://benbarren.blogspot.com/2005/11/gemaya-crunching-numbers-start.html) for pushing me along in that respect). Incidentally, my top 5 ZDNet posts at time of writing are: [Leaked Documents from Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=52)[Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie on the Web Office](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=55)[Is digg the new Slashdot?](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=51)[The Web-based Office will have its day](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=20)[Personalized Start Pages: Microsoft, Google, Netvibes](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=48)[Ray Ozzie: The Internet Services Disruption](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508063307/http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?page_id=54) My ZDNet readers like the techie posts and ones about Microsoft! Anyway… I hope you don’t mind this excursion into blog navel-gazing, but I felt like I needed to re-focus and get back on the track that made Read/WriteWeb a joy to write (and hopefully to read) to begin with. I’d **really appreciate** any comments – positive or negative – that you have about R/WW. What kind of things do you want me to deliver to you and where do you see the value (if any) of my blog? *Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/midblog_crisis.php))*