Interview: Me on Blogs and Blogging

Published on Jul 17, 2007 (updated Feb 5, 2024), filed under interviews, misc (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)

Below is an interview with me to be published in Bruce C. Brown’s forthcoming book, The Secret Power of Blogging: How to Promote and Market Your Business, Organization, or Cause with Free Blogs. I look forward to the release as the book will contain a lot of insight into blogging. Thanks to Bruce for the permission to pre-publish this interview.

Bruce C. Brown:

Can you describe your introduction to blogging, how you became interested and how it impacted you personally?

Jens O. Meiert:

Well, there are two stories. In 2003 I started to regularly publish my German web development and usability articles and translations on my website, and some people consider that German site a blog even though it doesn’t even allow comments. (I don’t think that comment functionality is necessary for a blog, but it appears to be characteristic.) In 2005 I thought about establishing an English blog which finally went live in January, 2007. This “real” blog was driven by the wish to serve a more global audience as well as talk about things that bother or impress me and other professionals.

Personally, I enjoy blogs because of the “close proximity” between authors and readers—blogs bring people together. Feeds and comments make it easy to get and stay informed and involved, and I appreciate that both from an author as well as a reader point of view. The impact blogging has on me is best described by two aspects: more responsibility and higher involvement.

Brown:

From a business perspective, how do you think blogging can positively impact communications, sales, and corporate image?

Meiert:

To be honest, I still consider “corporate blogging” a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s a great thing in order to build more trust and credibility, which may result in a better reputation and more sales. On the other hand, this only works when those corporate bloggers can really be sincere, and when there is no “corporate censorship” involved. (At least, they need to convey that impression, all the time.)

The problem is that this isn’t possible in every company. I very much doubt that. Especially larger companies may know a higher probability of either letting people blog who aren’t quite happy—at first, this is probably perceived positively since credible, but from a certain point on it will backfire—, choosing only certain people—that’s also censorship, isn’t it—, or establishing some kind of blog “supervision.”

From a corporate perspective, you need to make sure that nobody questions your truthfulness. As an outsider, you can only hope for that honesty—or become a little bit paranoid.

Brown:

What is the best advice you can give an individual or business who is considering starting a blog?

Meiert:

Be sincere, focus on accuracy, focus on quality.

Brown:

What industry sites and blogs do you read regularly?

Meiert:

That’s quite a bunch. I’ll pick a random five:

Brown:

What are your favorite blog development tools or applications?

Meiert:

I appreciate and recommend WordPress. Other blog systems, and I evaluated quite a few before setting up meiert.com in English, are almost always less usable, less maintainable, or output worse code. However, I won’t recommend development tools, plug-ins (except for Akismet, which does a great job in filtering spam), and stuff, since this decision is an individual one. The needs are too different.

Brown:

Can you name 5 tips for successful blogging?

Meiert:

Write faithfully.
Write regularly.
Be social.
Be honest.
Be passionate.

Brown:

Can you name 5 common mistakes in blogging?

Meiert:

Provocatively, there’s only one mistake:

Not learning from mistakes.

Brown:

What is the best way to get a new weblog promoted?

Meiert:

Unless it’s just for fun, you’re better off setting goals for your blog. It makes it easier to strike.

Configure your blog to ping Technorati, Google Blog Search, and pals. Create a few posts that are well-researched, comprehensive, or provocative, but in a way that’s roughly similar to the style you adhere to in the near future. Tell your friends and colleagues—some of them might want to link to your blog. Make use of trustworthy and relevant blog and feed directories. Use opportunities to get links to your blog, for example, in public profiles of LinkedIn and stuff. Learn, and optimize. (That never ends, unfortunately. Or fortunately.)

Brown:

What is the relationship between your website and your blogs? How are they interconnected? How does the blog expand upon your website?

Meiert:

Well, on the one hand, my blog is relatively closely linked to its German sister due to the same “corporate identity,” some “shared content” that is available in two languages, and some architecture commonalities. On the other hand, it’s quite different: It targets a different—the English—information space with often different material. It is based on dynamic pages, whereas the rest of the site is still static.

However, this “hybrid concept” seems to work pretty well for me, even though English readers barely benefit from the German part of my site. (It’s actually even more targeted, covering all my professional publications, from books to articles to translations.)

Brown:

What do you think is the future of Blogging?

Meiert:

Blog software will anticipate posts and hammer them out to all social networking platforms available.

Seriously: For the near future, I expect greater simplification and more automation. (Quite abstract, sure.) I also expect more “information space pollution” meaning fewer posts containing new and valuable information, and much more spam, like more than 20 spam comments for 1 real comment. I don’t expect anything revolutionary, though: This would require new names or buzzwords, respectively, and may not be called “blogging.”

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you’ve never heard of and companies you use every day, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)