So we’ve come to the end of the blogging road and to commemorate (or perhaps celebrate) this momentous occasion I thought I’d compile a list of things I’ve learnt from my short tenure in the blogosphere.
1. You need time…lots and lots of time
Since starting this blog I realised just how much time and effort goes in to creating a single post fit for online publication. Trying to maintain a blog of this nature would be near impossible for me on my own because by the time I would get around to posting, the news would probably be stale. However, I actually really enjoyed the satisfaction of completing a post (especially our own “anatomy of a post”) because with publishing online there’s always a feeling that somebody somewhere might be reading your work and reacting to it. You don’t get that with a standard uni essay.
2. Comments are hard to come by (unless you force them out of your friends)
This relates to number 1, you need lots of time to read other blogs and to comment. This networking aspect is really the key to blogging, I think, because it’s what brings readers to your site. I must admit, I didn’t comment all that much on other blogs (though I did do a lot of linking) and so I only received a few in return. So, I definitely have a new found respect for those blogs you see with hundreds of comments.
3. WordPress is actually pretty great…most of the time
I really liked using WordPress, I think everything is really clear and there’s lots of ways to make your posts interesting and interactive. At first I was irritated by the rigid design layouts and the fact that you couldn’t do much in the way of making your blogs look a little different. However, after choosing a template and playing around with it, I was actually really happy with the design opportunities. Even though I didn’t choose a “conventional” blog look, I think it worked quite well with my niche. However, it was frustrating when trying to coincide the posts with the layout (the length of the headings of posts in the square boxes needed to be the same) so this meant that I had to shuffle the posting order around quite a bit. So, whilst I had quite a few fights with the photo uploading tool, the rest was pretty much smooth sailing.
4. Net Communications and Fashion are like oil and water: they’re very difficult to mix together
Attempting to merge the ideas of Geert Lovink into anything fashion related was certainly a struggle. In fact, trying to seamlessly combine the core posts with the overall subject matter of the blog was the biggest obstacle I faced. This was in part due to the ambiguity in the criteria – I wasn’t entirely sure how much of the Net Communications aspects to include and how strongly we had to adhere to the conventions and topics of our niche. Also, the very broad word count limits for each post only added to the uncertainty – I was never quite sure if I was on the right track or not. Of course, the flexible nature of blogging (and the vast range of blogs) means that hard and fast criteria would be too limiting – so I guess it’s a bit of a double edged sword. Nonetheless, I tried my best to link all the technical Net Comm posts to something in the fashion world – though these links were sometimes rather tenuous…
5. To be a good blogger requires a lot hard work, for little return.
‘Nuff said.
//
To fill the void of not having any cool, funny or bizarre blogging stories to share, I leave you with this clip of David Bowie performing his song, Fashion (yet another tenuous link…)
Adieu!
[Feature image by Olaf Wipperfurth]
This Is Not Vogue. 
Posted on June 2, 2010
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