I first learned of the release of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1, as well as Express Editions and the MSDN Feedback Center, shortly after midnight this morning. Since then, I've seen it reported by dozens of bloggers, and the day is young. ('We blog more by 8 a.m. than most people do all day.') If you're a .NET blogger and you haven't yet written about today's new releases, please don't!
What is the thought process that leads one to blog about an event of this magnitude? 'If I don't blog this, nobody will hear about it!' Or perhaps, 'Ooh, if I hurry and blog this, I'll be the first, and I'll get lots of links and notoriety!' Please.
Before you post (not just today, every day), I urge you to peruse the home page at weblogs.asp.net or do a search at Technorati. If you don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said several times, do us all a favor and step away from the keyboard. Thank you.
Comments
Posted by Christopher Hawkins on June 29, 2004:
Posted by Phil Weber on June 29, 2004:
Christopher: Thanks for the comment. I guess if you read blogs to get news, your viewpoint makes sense. That’s not, however, why I read them. I’ll get my tech news from MSDN or ZDNet. From bloggers, I expect something unique: A technical discovery or an individual perspective. Here is an excellent example: http://www.coolbits.nu/558.aspx
Posted by Jason Mauss on June 29, 2004:
I actually sorta tend to agree w/ Phil on this one. It’s rather annoying to check your feeds and see 20 posts all talking about the same thing, as if they all think they’re going to tell me something the others don’t or that nobody else has already blogged about it? I don’t buy the “offer a take” on it thing either - most of the posts I’ve seen about VS2005 this morning have all been just that of “VS2005 Beta 1 released…look here [link]” and nothing more.
The real issue, for me, is that of a “linker” or “thinker” blogs. I only read thinker blogs anymore, as the linkers provide little to no value for me since I’ve usually already heard or found the information myself. Some people blog just to link to everyone and everything “cool”. I don’t really understand this type of blog, I wouldn’t do it and would feel it’s a waste of time to be a “human aggregator” of info. The only way a “linker” blog is worth subscribing to me is if the person blogging can add a notable amount of commentary or additional info about it not found on the page itself. Scoble comes to mind as a good example of that.
Posted by bliz on June 29, 2004:
Nah. I’m going to post, without worrying if 100 other people have already said it. If you’ve seen it before, just move along. That’s the beauty of an aggregator and the delete key. I might waste a second or two of your day, and a few million CPU cycles of your computer (which will never be noticed), and perhaps some bandwidth on the internet, but it’s just a blip in the scheme of things. I blog for me, and you blog for you. (I wonder how many other people have said the same thing about not posting about what everyone else has posted? :o) )
Posted by Phil Weber on June 29, 2004:
“I blog for me, and you blog for you.”
Hi, Jim: Thanks for your comment. Actually, I try to blog for my readers, providing something (hopefully) that they’ll find useful or entertaining and that they haven’t seen elsewhere. If I merely ‘waste a few seconds of their day,’ it’s too easy for them to unsubscribe.
Posted by Geek on June 29, 2004:
You have got to be kidding right. You obviously do not have a clue as to the power of weblogs. I don’t know what crack you have been smoking
Posted by Mike Schinkel on June 30, 2004:
Phil:
After contemplation, I completely agree. I actually blogged about Express before I read your post, but hopefully mine had a unique enough spin to it. :)
http://blogs.xtras.net/mikes/PermaLink,guid,005ae186-a8b5-4a98-a634-09f6fcdad287.aspx
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Phil, you’re a sharp guy and we all love you to pieces, but…you are 100% wrong on this one. Different people get their news from different sources. This is a rich environment and there really is room for multiple reports of the same event, especially the bloggers who offer a “take” on said event.
Do you demand that Reuters, Fox News, and MSNBC shut down in order to allow CNN to be the sole provider of news? Of course not. So why ask bloggers not to blog about the same event?