I'm honored, really. Stefan, over at IntoMobile, deigns to give us insight into what criteria he uses to reduce his RSS bloat in an attempt to become a better blogger, reader, etc. Apparently he has concluded that he should unsubscribe:
"This is a classic case of 'blog that covers a certain niche turns into a blog being more about the author’s life that what it was originally about.' EuroTelco used to ask hard hitting questions about the telecoms industry, now it’s turned into a personal diary."
I think those of us with a respect for English grammar would say "than what it was originally about," but apart from this petty criticism, I'm genuinely sorry that Stefan feels let down. Of course I'm very concerned about the opinion of any blogger who would take the time to selflessly write a series of articles about how they're trimming their RSS feeds, and why. I also enjoy licking sandpaper, eavesdropping on the conversations of self-obsessed gadget bores, and counting in-bound links from IntoMobile (I'm currently up to three).
Not that I owe an explanation, but I'm in the process of starting up an investment company, which is understandably taking the majority of my time. In our potential investment pipeline are a number of situations which would form the basis for many interesting posts on critical issues facing the industry, but in my position, it is inappropriate to telegraph these sorts of things in public, and in some cases the situations are not even public, so saying anything would violate NDAs.
This blog is not, and never has been, a source of income for me (contrast this page with the ad-encrusted IntoMobile), so given the choice of how to allocate my time and energy, I am naturally focusing more on activities which are for the time-being. I've been pretty lucky over the past five years to have a large number of readers who were not only interested in the "hard-hitting questions," but also the person asking them. To think that the two could, or should, be separate in a personal blog is absurd, so I'm happy to see anyone who doesn't grasp that unsubscribe.
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5 comments:
Dear James
I feel sorry that you took Stefan's post so seriously. It is his problem not yours.
I enjoyed, I enjoy and I will enjoy your blog, so please cheer up, otherwise I will get depressed, and that's the last thing I want. Work is hard enough already.
Cheers
Askan.
I must say, people complaining that you aren't writing your blog is a great compliment. It is funny that people almost feel they have a right to receive frequent blogposts. They don't seem to understand that blogging is a hobby of some kind that is completely separate from the rest of your life, that it requires (a great deal of) time, inspiration and motivation.
However, as you've proven too, there is always time, inspiration and motivation when someone is wrong on the internet :-)
http://xkcd.com/386/
Because of your link I looked at IntoMobile for the first (and probably last) time, so I became one of their millions of (in my case: literally) unique visitors. It's nothing I would subscribe to, and neither would I unsubscribe your feed.
Well, don't worry about me unsubscribing anytime soon. I think it's the miracle of blogging that there is a mix between personal and analytical. It actually contributes to a deeper understand to not just read something someone has written on a given topic but understand how he got there.
Plus we have musical tastes in common, so obviously your personal stuff is of interest to me too !
Thanks Rudolf, askan, HPL, and Sammael, I appreciate the support. Worry not, I had a smile on my face as I wrote my retort. Normally I would ignore this sort of noise, but when I saw that I was being dissed for self-indulgence in the context of someone else conducting what amounts to public colonic irrigation on an RSS reader (apparently adding up to 30 installments), I was so amused I couldn't resist.
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