Confessions of a Social Tools Architect
28 Oct
Everyone, except you real younguns, probably remembers buying music in some tangible format (vinyl, 8-track, cassette, or CD). A common practice, then and now, was for the best information to make it to the front, the A-Side. Other music, many times music that the musician, not the label, wanted, is placed on the flip side, B-Side.
Perhaps a common misconception of the B-Side is that it’s “riddled with crap”. Fortunately, I’ve heard many a B-Side that’s good if not better than the A. Jimmie recently got me thinking about this as applies to blogging when he mentioned a photoblogger than was sorting his posts this way.
My first reaction to the notion was good, honestly. I really liked the idea that there was a place for overflow. It wasn’t until last night, as we finished up some plans for the launch of a new blog (sorry can’t tell more until next week), that I realized how much I could use one myself.
SocialTwister has never really been a personal blog. I see what I do here as part of work, but it’s an enjoyable part (sometimes more than others). I tend to have a policy of posting only once a day. I do this to ensure that I give each post enough consideration and thought. My schedule is just too busy to write more often and I like to do my best once a day. Subsequent posts in the same day would be little quickies and against my goal.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with posting lots of times a day, it’s in the DNA of bloggers. I get the urge many times to just throw stuff up, but I won’t. I need a B-Side. If I had a B-Side, I would be able to be looser with my policy. I could post the meaty piece here and then lots of other things over there. Next week, I’ll be starting that process.
I’m curious how you’re all dealing with your content. Do you simply have different categories that you post to for filtering purposes (the pegboard approach)? Do you have on dumping category (the kitchen draw approach)? Do you have multiple blogs (the B-Side approach)? Do you just not say anything at all that’s out of character?
If you’ve got a B-Side, can you provide links to both of your identities for some comparison?
2 Responses for "Blogging and the B-Side"
i’m using textpattern on my site, and i have it set up to function more like a regular site with a cms backend. I wanted the rss functionality that a blog offered, but didn’t really want to write a feed into either my own homegrown cms, or tack one onto an existing cms system.
anyway, i have multiple categories. things like the ‘about’ section rarely change. i have a section to post my music, and a section to post info on the various gigs i’m playing (the original intention of this site). and besides the obligatory ‘links’ section i have one section entitled blog. this acts as kind of an overflow for the rest of the site. however, i generally only post articles about a few of my interests… music news, software recommendations / reviews, random oddball sites. etc. In a way it is my b-side. however, i do restrict what i post and how often i post, since usually i have one ‘important’ thing i want to say, like commenting on the death of John Peel, but i will usually have 2 or 3 other ideas for quickie posts that I don’t add to the site, so as not to add noise to the ’signal’. however, a b-side section could possibly allow for these random thoughts to be jotted down… hmm, maybe i’ll do that, but not include it on my main xml feed, so as to keep signal to noise ratio low.
hmmm… the real “blogger DNA” is having about 20 blogs, mostly anonymous or pseudonymous… ;)
man, you should see what my Z-side looks like..
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