I was initially drawn to blogging because I was fascinated with the idea that I could quickly publish posts in my own little corner of cyber-space in a chronological format. I jumped in with the blog I called Mister Anchovy.
Later I tried an experiment in making it into more of a group blog in which a number of individuals could post. Mister Anchovy became Mister Anchovy’s. That experiment was not so successful. I think that approach can work with a group of people interested in the same topics or ideas. For instance, I can imagine a mushroom hunting blog in which several foragers post photos of their finds, stories of their adventures in the forest and so on. Mostly people who want to do that kind of thing set up forums rather than blogs, in order to bring in a larger number of people. Those forums can become like online communities, such as the Banjo Hangout and the Wild Mushroom Hunting forum. Forums are fine, but I think blogs are more interesting. An example of a group blog that I think works very well is Garden Rant.
Somewhere along the way, blogging, which seemed early on to be mostly some variation of on-line journals, became a possible space for some people to make money. Thars gold in them thar hills. There are some very popular blogs that are full of ads, connected to online stores and so on. For me, Mister Anchovy, Mister Anchovy’s and now 27th Street have never been about making a living (although my blog does have a link to my mosaic work, which is for sale and occasionally to my paintings which also are for sale). It’s always been an expression of what is interesting me at the time. Over the years, I’ve blogged increasingly about my interests in folk music forms – from accordion music in all it’s variety and splendor to old time music and even videos of my own attempt to squeeze out or pick a few tunes.
I’ve never found a blog theme or template that fully satisfied me. Regular readers will by now be used to showing up here to find that the joint looks different from time to time. Sometimes it’s just a matter of refreshing the look, but more recently I’m finding the form to be kind of clunky.
I’ve been toying with the idea of adopting a slightly different form, more of a tumblog type approach that is a simple flow of posts. With this approach the here and now is what is important. I suppose this approach is somewhere between Twitter, which is all about this tweet now and the older blog approach in which the blog is a self-contained unit with categories and tags and side-bars and blogrolls and whatever else.
I have a question for you. Do you care a damn what’s on the sidebar of my blog? Do you do searches? Do you look at the blog by category (I suspect I have way too many categories and might have been better served limiting them to half a dozen treated as menu items). Do you use the blog roll? I used to use blog rolls a lot. If I liked a blog, I’d investigate the blog roll and find other blogs I liked that way. I found some blogs run by people who have become good friends that way. People occasionally come to my blog because of a blog roll. For instance Gerard Vlemmings has my blog listed on the recommended blogs list on his remarkable and popular blog, The Presurfer. I’ve had many visitors over the years thanks to this listing. Overall though, I get a lot more hits from comments I make on other blogs. People read my comment, and click the link back. Far and away though, most of the hits on this blog come from people searching for content on one subject or another.
The other format that has become more and more popular, especially with the popularity of tablets and smart phones is the magazine style responsive theme. I’ve looked at 27th Street in this kind of format, but I think it loses the regular journal-like aspect, which I still really enjoy. On a desktop you see a group of post blocks in one format or another, with various levels of fancy design. They look slick, but I haven’t found one of these formats that rings true for me, at least for my blog as it exists now. I might feel differently about this if I re-invented my blog – kind of like Dr Who morphing into a new actor.
So I’m torn. I can carry on as I’ve been carrying on. I’m happy with the community of people who visit. I find that most people who comment on my posts tend to comment on facebook (I cross-post over there most of the time), and I think I’d prefer the comments live on the blog, but that’s no big deal. My blog does not attract the scads of comments that many other blogs do in any case. Alternatively, I can apply my 27th Street content to a new format, and if I do that, I’m leaning toward a tumblog format, perhaps like Shelf. Or perhaps I could engage a blog designer to make something specific for me. If I go this route, I would strip it bare, and eliminate the trappings of the sidebar altogether. This would really change the feel of this blog. I’m interested to know your reaction to this idea – in particular, as readers/viewers, does the sidebar matter? Does the format matter to you? I’d appreciate it if you’d weigh in on this and let me know. What do you like or hate about this blog (I have thick skin, and I won’t take it personally).
Perhaps I’m thinking about these things because my problem with the format isn’t so much the format as it is a desire to somehow reinvent what I’m doing with my blog. If that’s the case, maybe it is time to retire 27th Street and move into Son of 27th Street or whatever it might be called. A wholesale change opens up lots of new possibilities. Would I lose you? Or would you be excited to come along for the ride?
Blogging remains an activity that is still important to me. I continue to post, if not daily, close to daily. Yes I’m on Facebook but barely. It helps me keep in touch with people but on the other hand, I see blogging as more of a work in progress. It has a look, a feel, a cadence, character and so on. I haven’t fallen in love with Twitter, although for certain things, it’s fantastic – like following breaking political events for instance, or getting news as it happens. If I used a smart phone, I might find Instagram to be an interesting community, but blogging opens up so many more possibilities.
I can’t help but notice that many of the people I know through blogging are blogging much less than they used to or not at all – yet I find myself more interested than ever in continuing to explore this kind of online presence. I think there is technical pressure for blogging to change (and of course that makes the old-school blog more interesting to me). For instance, Google abandoning Reader is significant. I use the WordPress Reader now and it works fine, but at risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I feel like the form is being pushed to something that is easier to use for mass marketing. On Facebook, at every turn, you’re asked if you’d like to give up some personal information. Want to play a game, ok, here’s the rules. I keep changing my settings to “most recent” and it keeps changing it back to “top stories”. I hate the idea of Facebook telling me what I should want to look at and how I might want to look at it.
I haven’t decided where this blog is going to go or how it’s going to develop or morph or reinvent itself. I am feeling a certain restlessness that I’m sure some other bloggers can identify with. I continue to love the idea of the personal blog, and I appreciate the fact that on a few topics, people contact me with questions and so on because of what I’ve posted.
Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts about blogging and formats and themes and approaches and all that jazz. At the same time, if you’ve been saving up comments about what you like or hate about this blog, this is the time to unburden yourself. I’m not going to promise I’m going to do what you tell me I ought to do (one of the things I like about blogging is that in the end I get to decide), but I sure am going to think about what you have to say.
27th Street 
I liked the tag cloud too, but I just felt overwhelmed by the weight of the blog. It just felt heavy and old to me. I wasn’t going to use the labels on the top but I relented and decided to use a limited number of labels and I think that works pretty well. I’m really happy you like these little stories. I have a head full of them and I want to get them out. I’m thinking of them as flash stories or short short stories – 300-800 words, more or less. Get in and get out, that’s all. I like the shelf because each post exists as its own little entity. I enjoy the different sizes too. It just feels right.
I don’t know what to say about the blogroll situation… I’ve enjoyed following those links but I know a lot of people don’t keep up with blogging long-term.
I stopped for a while for many reasons and though I wish I hadn’t (so many things I’ll forget because they’re not recorded, and Facebook doesn’t work that way — accessing old information is hard) it’s never too late to restart… but I’ll be blogging on my own website soon where I’ll also have a portfolio, shop, and other things.
I enjoyed the keyword cloud on the old format too, but seem to be able to find what I’m looking for here without it. The shelf things is a little dizzying but I love a challenge!
I’ll hang out no matter what you post, but I love the mosaics and Story Time and pet posts and banjo posts and mushroom posts and… wait, I clearly love all of it. Carry on.
I often “like” or comment on FB instead of here because I’m already signed in there and I open your posts in a new tab… I’m lazy, but it makes sense that the conversation should happen here. It only takes a moment to log in and keeps my WordPress password current in my head! Or maybe I’ll just click “stay signed in.” That’s better.
I dont facebook or twit or use any of those pieces of social media spyware. Nor will I ever use them. I object to being tracked and I object to someone assembling a large dossier on me so I fight hard to prevent my personal info from being logged by anyone. If you did something like use a social media site only you would lose me faster than I could type it. WordPress attempts to download executable code to my computer but I am able to block it. Cant do that with facebook because if you dont accept their scripts they wont let you see very much on their site. I dont use anything at all on the sidebar and mostly I dont care what sort of skin appears on the blog. I have a preference for having a very small amount of media showing on one page because large amounts essentially shut down my dial up internet. The only blog I read is in fact this one because in general I dont care what people think. Interestingly I do frequent a couple of forums because they focus narrowly on things that interest me. I dont access the internet with a telephone and I guess that makes me a dinosaur. shrug. I also dont care if there is advertising because there is zero possibility that I would ever click on an internet ad. Not even if I was drunk. It is likely that the simpler and cleaner the format the happier I would be but I dont actually expect anyone to care.
I come here for the cat stories and gardening/food…what can I say? 🙂 I rarely look at anything on the side panels as I usually come to each post via facebook or twitter. I don’t usually search for things here, although I did hunt for a recipe a time or two. I’m not too fussy about how the cat stories and gardening shots get relayed–as long as I can still see what’s new easily (i.e. you announce new posts or whatever you’re going to call them to twitter or facebook) I’m quite happy with whatever new iteration your blog takes. And yes, I do usually only post comments on facebook because it’s easier (especially if I’m reading it via my bb, which is 90% of the time).
You mean you don’t come for the banjo videos?
I noticed you re-jigged your own blog, making it part of a larger personal site, where people can go for all things Jennifer.
Yes, I did rejig my blog into a website. I wanted the ability to post things like recipes (because people sometimes ask me for them) and organize everything the way I wanted it to be. It gives me room to grow it into something more (yes, some sort of business, likely related to gardening) eventually. It was loosely inspired by two sites I check out prettymuch every weekday http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/ and http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/
I read it in Feedly so I never really see the page much…… And of course you know that I keep my weblog very very old school and no monetisation of any kind (though of course I mostly run it from FB these days via IFTTT and also thereby to twitter and app.net)
I’ve been following your posts for a really long time now. These days I often grab them off Twitter….I made a list of Twitter feeds I like and I go to the list. Thanks for weighing in on this.
Like you, I have resisted the push to monetize my blog, and I really appreciate that you have. I like the idea that you have something to say and to share because it interests you, not because you run a money-making tool. As you know, I have been considering revamping my blog as well, as the way it is currently set up doesn’t really reflect my reality anymore.
I do like the look of Shelf, that you linked. It looks fresh and clean and hip. But, as you pointed out, there is the lack of sidebar in that format. I don’t always use links in others sidebars, but I like knowing they are there if I feel like exploring. Blogrolls in particular are important, I think. They are a link to your closest community and I think that important to maintain. Personally, I use my own blogroll to connect to your blog and to other blogs, since I have never used Reader or any of those newfangled search things.
So I guess what I am circling around the drain trying to say is, I appreciate the old-school feel of your blog, it’s connectivity and inclusiveness, and I would encourage you to maintain some of that feeling of community in whatever format you end up going with.
Looking forward to the new you!
Barb, I read somewhere that WordPress is going to stop supporting blogrolls. I don’t know if that is true, but if so, it would fall in with my little conspiracy theory. Once I started using a reader, I got addicted to it because it would show me when, for instance, you made an update on Zombie. Before that, I found myself checking blogs to see if they had been updated. When Google announced they were trashing Reader, I thought, why would they do that? It can’t be so expensive to support. We all want free but in the end there is a cost to free, isn’t there?
I’m thinking that if I go with Shelf, I can redo my about page and include a list of recommended blogs on that page. The only thing bothering me about this approach is the lack of search capability. The question is, do I need it?
How interesting, given the content of this post – the first individual to “like” this post runs a blog about how to make money blogging.