What Should My New Blog Be?

I came across this tumblr site showcasing its own blogging tool for some "new" type of blogs called tumblelogs. Kottke defined them as this while Wikipedia described them as this. If you need such a sample of a tumblelog I guess Kottke's blog can be categorized as one. And also Pau's Brownpau blog will be a good sample too.

Is this a new breed of blogs? Not really. Just by looking at the two sample tumblelogs, the term "tumblelogs" is a coined term for such types of blogs that are minimal in writings and focuses more in refering to an assortment of links or photos from various Internet sites. Most of these posts have very little personal commentaries or even noen at all. To me, its more like finding some great and exciting content from another website and I want to share these with my network of blog friends. Yeah, like a summary of lists, with some additional remarks, if any, peppered in between.

I could say that my first blog (around 2001) can be categorized as a tumblelog. I generally write posts then that are short and more like a mish-mash of links instead of long article-like posts. I would look around in the Internet, searching for controversial or worthwhile information to blog. Occasionally, I would comment on my posted entries only if I have something relevant to share on the things I have written about. Yes, my early blogging style has no direction whatsoever. Whatever interests me, I blog about it. Whatever I like to share (even some personal matters), I also blog about it. Different posts on different unrelated subject matters. My blog then is not a type of niche blog. But to me, blogging then was more fun since I don't have to think so hard about the posts that I need to write about for the day. I don't need then to write blog posts that are lengthy and look like well-written magazine articles. I don't feel pressured to blog. I can be informal in my writing style.

I tried before to create blog posts that appear like newspaper/magazine articles. These would be posts on personal reviews of favorite TV show episodes or ponderings on political subjects in my country. But I soon found myself becoming less and less involved in blogging. I began to be too concerned on what to write or not to write. I became a perfectionist in writing such article like posts as if I am writing to get an approval of a non-existing editor-in-chief. Eventually, I became bored and burned out of blogging. Blogging then became an unenjoyable chore. I believed I pushed myself too hard on blogging deeply that I slowly did not enjoy what I was writing about. I left the blogging world middle of the year 2003.

I came back to blogging middle of 2005. As to what are my reasons for returning to blogging, that would be reserved for another post. For now, I'm deciding the direction and style for my new wordpress blog. Must I restrict my blog on posting for a few subject matters (niche blog)? Or must I make this blog a photoblog (since I have a knack for posting my photographs)? Or must I return to tumblelogging - anything goes and unrestricted? Personally I like the last option, but I also want to write more on a certain interesting subject matters with such as graphic designing, OFW matters and stories, and others. I also want to post my pictures from time to time. Why not all three options then? Yeah, these I will do.