Name: What makes a blog good?
Uploaded: 2008-01-28T19:40:03-05:00
Duration: 1 min 53 s
Description: Kottke reads a lot of blogs. A lot.

Kottke reads a lot of blogs. A lot.

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Question: What makes a blog good?

Jason Kottke: It needs to feature good writing, but not always. I don’t think I’m a particularly good writer, and somehow people manage to stay engaged. I think . . . I don’t know. That’s a good question, and I’m not sure I know how to answer that. I think that if the person behind who’s writing the blog, or the people who are writing the blog are . . . If the reader feels that they’re genuinely interested in what they’re doing, I think that makes it compelling. I think that sometimes the . . . You know the blogosphere has sort of gotten more commercial. And you know my site included are commercial ventures. And I think that some of that passion is kind of lost along the way when you’re hiring people to do weblogs and they . . . You know they may not be the biggest fan of gadgets and technology, but they’re writing for EndGadget or whatever. But I think in general some of those sites do a pretty good job of finding people who are enthusiastic about their subjects. And I mean I guess that’s what I always look for – someone who is genuinely like . . . Whatever I’m writing about is the best thing I could be writing about right now.

Question: What blogs do you read?

Jason Kottke: I mean there’s a bunch of weblogs that I go to every single day. I read probably . . . I try and read between 250 and 300 sites a day. Yeah, it’s a lot.

Recorded on: 10/9/07