What is a Good Weblog?

A strange question. If the weblog is supposed to serve only its author, is there an answer to this question? I guess the author would have to be very clear on how the weblog could best serve him.

How can the criteria for a good weblog be contained to just the author's criteria when so much of weblogging is interaction, quotes plus annotations, comments, and memewatch? I don't know.

Here are some quotes and observations by webloggers about weblogs, particularly about which weblogs are seen as "Good Weblogs", whether that mean effective, popular, thorough, consicous, spontaneous, appropriate, or candid.

Developing "Good Weblog" Curriculum or Roadmap for Weblog Mastery

McGee's notes from Blogging in the classroom, a project where MBA students were required to use weblogs in during the course. There were no requirements, however, dictating how or when the weblogs were to be used. He muses:

While I do believe that working with willing volunteers is the preferred organizational change strategy, even early adopters will benefit from some careful handholding and guidance. There are four hurdles to pass to move from willing volunteer to competent blogger: learning the technology environment, developing an initial view of blogging, plugging into the conversation, and developing a voice. These are not so much discrete phases as they are parallel tracks that can be managed.

Give me a Contender or give me Fluff

Here are some good quotes from an interview with Amy Gahran, the creator of the Web zine, Contentious. In the zine Amy reviews different sites and places them in either her award-winning Contenders column or in her shame on you, Fluff column. The answer is simple... c-o-n-t-e-n-t! Either you have it or you don't!

When users arrive at your site, Gahran says they are most likely asking:

What is this page about?
What is this site about?
Is this material intended for someone like me?
How much information will I find here?
What kinds of information will I find here?

How does the author know if those questions are easily answered? Here is a checklist:

Is the text well-organized?
Is there some kind of summary or index at the beginning?
Does the text remain fairly understandable, if not read from the beginning?
Are the words selected to become hyperlinks well-chosen and intuitive?

Before you create a single Web page, Gahran advises, think hard about these questions and answer them as specifically as possible... vague answers are useless:

Why do we need a site at all? What purpose will it serve?
What are the goals for this site?
What target audience do we want to reach, and why?
What kinds of content, including services, will interest our target audience(s)?

Resolving the Audience-Author Conflict

I am constantly struggling to balance two weblog roles: the first role is the weblog as my own lab notebook, with the audience being one person: me. When I see something interesting I want to write up a quick post in shorthand so that I don't forget about it. In this role, the weblog doesn't need to care about traffic, counting hits, getting people to comment.

Another role of my weblog is to share research with others that could find it useful. I would like to format posts and stories so that visitors can clearly understand what I am saying. I'd like to write clearly and effectively since the site bears my name.

The downside of maintaining the weblog-for-self role while writing for an audience is that audience members (all two of them) can't decipher my shorthanded posts, and probably leave before they find content applicable to them. Conversely, being consicous of an audience when making lab notebook posts makes updating the weblog more of a chore.

Bryce has an interesting strategy: A section of his weblog is called "Bryce's Follow-Up List: A list of things I need to follow up on". He created a separate category to resolve the weblog-for-self vs. weblog-for-audience conflict. Good technique Bryce.

Some more references to on this topic:

How to Write a Better Weblog by Dennis A. Mahoney (via A List Apart)

Despite the whining of the professionals over weblog junk, what is far more remarkable are the many hundreds of outstanding weblogs extant. The percentage of top-notch weblogs to junk exceeds the percentage of top-notch professional - that is, paid - media to professional media junk).

[RadioDocs: Russ Lipton Documents Radio]

Blogs Worth Revisiting by Al Macintyre

What makes a good weblog: http://www.camworld.com/journal/rants/99/01/26.html

what weblogs I frequent and why, patterns of good weblogs. [update 8/15/2002] paraphrase this 'what separates the top-notch from the junk':

Blogs Better or Worse for Lack of Editors by SF Chrinicle's C.W. Nevius and annotaion from Radio Free Blogistan

Blogs better or worse for the lack of editors?. S.F Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius write about two editor-free Internet phenomena this Sunday: Google News and Blogs. He takes the heretical position for a writer that editors do in fact add value to writing. He devotes most of his column inches to Google News but takes on blogs near the end, allowing that blogs "can be very interesting," but characterizing many of them less charitably:
Self-indulgent claptrap would be the kind description. Hundreds and thousands of words about waking up a little late this morning and deciding to have a second cup of coffee

What these people need is someone with a discerning eye who can say, "Cut this in half. It is nowhere near as amusing and clever as you seem to think it is." ... Editor's do that. They also catch errors, clarify confusing passages and tell writers to start over and take a different approach. ... [W]e will always need good editors.
I'm forced to agree. I think the fluorising of uninhibited unedited writing online is a wonderful thing, but as someone whose worn both the writer and the editor hat, I don't think you can overestimate the value of a good editor and I think most good writers realize that.
[Radio Free Blogistan]

There’s money to be made from blogging, but indirectly—getting leads for paying gigs (Algorhythm), expanding your professional skill set (Dive Into Python), and finding entirely new opportunities through networking (Building Accessible Websites). [diveintomark]