Are In-Depth Articles Better Than Blog Postings?

athloi writes to tell us usability expert Jakob Nielsen is stressing the importance of well-thought-out articles as opposed to off-the-cuff blog postings. "Blog postings will always be commodity content: there's a limit to the value you can provide with a short comment on somebody else's comments. Such postings are good for generating controversy and short-term traffic, and they're definitely easy to write. But they don't build sustainable value. Think of how disappointing it feels when you're searching for something and get directed to short postings in the middle of a debate that occurred years before, and is thus irrelevant."

Comments

Balanced ecosystem

[Raindance]

I think there's an argument to be made about supporting a balanced blog ecosystem.

Obviously if everybody posts short blurbs, it just doesn't work, for obvious reasons. On the other hand, if *everybody* posts long, well-thought-out articles, it'd be hard to find 1. What you're interested in, since often the shortposters serve the function of aggregating cool things, and 2. Where the 'blogosphere' action is. There'd be fewer conversations, and indeed, short posts are part of a conversation.

Luckily, there appears little danger of everybody posting well-thought-out articles.

Personally, I'm starting to reap the benefits of longer articles on my science/tech blog. Lots of repeat readers. But it's so hard to get exposure when you have fewer chances for 'hits'.

Re:Balanced ecosystem

[blhack]

and thank GOD that somebody invented slashdot so that people could spam their blogs in the comments!!

Re:Balanced ecosystem

[tkrotchko]

"if *everybody* posts long, well-thought-out articles, it'd be hard to find 1."

Well, yeah, but that just means you have a lot of well-thought-out articles. It's hard to find a downside to that. More research is always better.

Blogs, on the other hand, are streams of consciousness. I don't see an "ecosystem" at work so much as just a bunch of people offering their opinions. It's like calling Bill O'Reilly a "verbal blogger".

My point is, there is a lot of value is well-thought-out articles. There is significantly less in offering opinion about the news.

Are in depth articles better than blog postings?

[cornjchob]

Yes.

I've been complaining about this for a while

[LoadWB]

I complain to colleagues about this urban web-sprawl quite a bit, especially in relation to Microsoft. I used to have three sources of information: TechNet, MSDN, and the Knowledge Base. Now you have to look at product blogs, official product blogs, product feature blogs, and so on. It has become almost impossible to find information. While searching for information on Server 2003 SP2 versus Small Business Server 2003, I finally came across a newsgroup post which linked to a KBA which referenced a blog. Absolute crap!

Re:I've been complaining about this for a while

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I've always thought of reading material in two simple categories: one-off and long-term. One-offs are things like tutorials or thought-provoking opinion pieces. Long-term tends to be reference material, but might also be something entertaining or profound enough to be worth revisiting once in a while.

Both can be valuable in their own way. Both can also be a waste of time and space. You need a different approach to write each well. And the scary thing is that most people — even those who write as part of their job — really suck at working out what kind of material is actually useful, and writing accordingly.

By its nature, ideal reference material is easy to find. That typically means that there are only a few places to look, and it's easy to search for what you need in those places. Once you get there, the material needs to be comprehensive and authoritative. No-one likes looking around for the same bit of information all day, and winding up with three half-baked, semi-contradictory versions of it in the end.

Blogs are the very antithesis of this ideal. There are a zillion of them. In any given field, there are typically a few really good ones, but the average quality is usually quite poor. The most organised search facilities you'll find are tagging (fine for locating related content within the same blog, but generally not much use for searching across blogs) and web search engines (which I use less and less as certain types of page get ever better at gaming the system and getting their stuff up-top when I don't really want to see it). This makes the recent push by many companies, Microsoft prominently among them, to disseminate technical reference information via blogs a pretty bad idea.

What blogs are really good at is conveying interesting nuggets of information. A blog post can be long enough to introduce a useful idea, or to draw attention to something newsworthy. Blogs lend themselves to being scanned by those looking for something interesting but unsure of what.

Bottom line: if these businesses really want to help people find the useful information, they should go back to maintaining a small number (ideally one!) of comprehensive, authoritative reference sites, and use blogs and newsfeeds as introductory material: highlight a useful new development or draw attention to a handy technique, direct the reader to the appropriate reference material if they want to know the details, and make sure the user never has to come back to that particular blog post again.

Depth and Reputation

[Kelson]

This reminds me of a comment someone made on the introduction of the iPod Shuffle (bear with me, it's relevant). The idea was that, at the time, the iPod brand was perceived as signifying the high-end digital music player. By expanding into the low-end, Apple was trading a loss in the value of their brand (since it no longer meant "high-end" by default) in order to gain another segment of the market.

Similarly, Nielsen's article suggests that by tossing off random blog articles, even if you also post highly insightful material, you lower the average value of what you post. You effectively cede some of your reputation.

That's even more of an issue with topic-based blogs. If your focus is, say, US politics, or astronomy, etc. you have to stick close to your topic, or people will start complaining, "Why are you spending all this time talking about your cats!"

Re:Depth and Reputation

[spun]

But Muffins was the first cat on the moon!

AND went on to become SeCATary of State, then fucked it up so badly they hung his tail from a plaque as a warning to others. It was a real cat-ass-trophy.

I... I can't believe I actually signed my name to that.

Re:Are in depth articles better than blog postings

[Harmonious Botch]

No

Short Answer

[SoulRider]

both.

If you are trying to glean some new information from the info you have then brainstorming, trains of thought, gut reactions, etc (the kinds of info you find on blogs) work great. If you are trying to learn something that is well established, then nothing beats well thought out in-depth research.

Relevancy

[SpaceLifeForm]

Just because something is old does not make it irrelevant.

And certainly, the case can be made that recent writings
are irrelevant from the moment they are written. See Fox.

CNN

[nairnr]

Honestly, this is like asking what is more useful - the Breaking News headline that you get from CNN, versus their CNN Presents or a similar feature length report. They each have their use, but obviously the more useful source is the one that is researched, well written and has some production value. What is going to appear next, Which is more useful to you - A Stub in Wikipedia or something that has some content on it?!? And what the hell is this doing on Slashdot!

Re:Are in depth articles better than blog postings

[Shadow Wrought]

Yes

No

My in depth analysis would be: possibily but not necessarily.

Advantages

[fonik]

There are huge advantages to popular blogs and social news sites. For instance Slashdot can:
- Provide commentary by famous people like Wil Wheaton and... well, just Wheaton, really.
- Melt unsuspecting servers into slag
- Ruin the ending to the next Harry Potter book (bastards.)
- Display your news in borders of your favorite color or pink
- Make you laugh at cooking/AIDS jokes
- Determine whether something could, in fact, run Linux

Re:Are in depth articles better than blog postings

[CaptainPatent]

Too long, didn't read

You decide.

[DoofusOfDeath]

Posted by DoofusOfDeath, 6:24 a.m:

Today I woke up and had some coffee. It was gross - they used that artificial creamer that they get cheap from SysCo.
Took a shower. Nothing eventful. I'm getting back hair in new places. Yuck.
Decided that in depth articles SUCK!
OK, time for breakfast - I think I'll have a bagel.

Comments:
1) By HoosierFan2006, 6:40 a.m.:
I just wish my hair would come back! LOL!

2) By Canonball25532, 6:51 a.m.:
No, in depth articles rock. You're an idiot.

3) By CatLover, 6:53 a.m.:
Anyone know where I can get a discount air conditioner? It's *hot* this week!

Re:Sound-bite Society

[Chris Burke]

I didn't read your post, but "sound-bite society" is a catchy sound-bite.

Re:Are in depth articles better than blog postings

[Run4yourlives]

He said: maybe

Re:Yes! In-depth is better

[spun]

Just to make a counterpoint, in-depth does not mean "long." A concise, well researched, and well referenced blog posting is better than a typical full length fluff piece by many a so-called science journalist.

Re:Are in depth articles better than blog postings

[Bombula]

Are in depth articles better than blog postings?

Are books better than book reviews?