Off Topic Book Review: Blogging Heroes
My publisher received a review copy of Michael Banks’ Blogging Heroes (Wiley, 2008) and passed it along to me. We don’t request nor regularly review books, and are not sure why this one was sent exactly, but I was intrigued by the title. The subtitle tells it all: “Interviews with 30 of the World’s Top Bloggers.”
Here’s the bottom line: it’s far more interesting to read blogs than to read about bloggers talking about blogging. Now, I say that as someone who’s blogged for more than three years, so your mileage may vary. Each chapter is an edited transcription of a phone interview with a well-known blogger or a not so well-known blogger who runs a well-known blog. I was most interested in the names I knew: Robert Scoble and Mary Jo Foley to name two.
The interviews are ok, though they cover the same ground: how did you get into blogging, do you leave comments on other blogs, do you use search engine optimization… And, the answers were strangely the same. That got rather boring after about five chapters.
That said, I did feel encouraged that many of the repeated themes paralleled my observations and how we chosen to run this blog. These include:
Blog about something you are passionate about
Don’t feel pressed to post stuff that’s not “worthy”
Be open to comments
Have a thick skin
Read other blogs (many of those interviewed follow hundreds of RSS feeds; my list number 30 maybe)
Comment on other blogs (I don’t do that much of it)
Don’t rehash what others have already covered unless you break new ground
Don’t worry too much about being first with a story
Blogging well takes a lot of time and regular attention
The blog is whatever you want it to be
That last one is perhaps the most important. Nearly everyone interviewed agreed there are plenty of electrons around for all to blog. And, if you are passionate, you’ll find an audience, big or small. I got dinged a few months back for basically rehashing a story that appeared elsewhere (not in the geopress/blogs) without adding anything. It got me thinking seriously about the criticism. What I realized is that this blog, which does offer opinion, also acts as a giant filter to all news. We pass on stories that don’t make the geopress or geoblogs but are relevant to this community. That’s part of this blog’s mission.
Blogging Heroes probably won’t tell you much you don’t already know if you are already a blogger. It won’t tell you too much that’s revolutionary if you are new to blogging. What it may do is confirm you are in the same boat with other, well known bloggers. And, that feels pretty good.
