To blog something to show

Here's Simon Willison explaining his approach to link blogging. If you haven't heard of link blogging, it's social media's worst enemy.

Instead of feeding third-party platforms with your thoughts and relying on algorithms for people to discover them, you post links on your corner of the internet (aka your website). The world can then follow your updates via RSS. You might be surprised how much your RSS feed can feel like if you subscribe to enough link blogs.

But what if no one is following or reading along? What value do link posts have in your hidden internet corner?

There's a saying that every written post has a unique perspective. While this sentence holds for blog posts, I have a hard time finding the uniqueness of "Check this out! [link]" posts. Is it worth to put these on my site?

Here's Simon again:

The value is in writing frequently and having something to show for it over time – worthwhile even if you don’t attract much of an audience (or any audience at all).

Yes! "Having something to show" is a blog benefit we need to talk about more often.

From the beginning, blogging helped me build my professional network and get jobs. One of my first blog posts got a bit of traction, and Googlers commented on it. Wild! Occasionally, people tell me that they know me from my blog. #wat?! 😅

But most importantly, I can (and do pretty often) show people this blog. Am I an expert in everything written here? Not at all... But having written about a topic often makes me more of an expert than someone who hasn't.

This blog played a role in most of my job interviews. Noted, I'm working in developer relations these days (writing is somewhat essential in this job), but either way, having a relevant online presence will earn you bonus points.

Because having a blog shows that you care. You care about the internet. You care about a specific topic. You care about sharing knowledge. You're into something.

Of course, running a blog in today's tech world and job market is not required, but having "something to show" is always better than having nothing to show, even if it's "just" a collection of relevant links. Hit publish and show it to the world!