building a personal long-tail

So I realise that it's very easy to take any idea and say 'building a long-tail for X' and pretend you've got something better, but I think there's something in this.

Because I think a blog is like a personal long-tail. (And, obviously, if Chris Anderson has already said this, I apologise.)

But the great thing about a blog, or at least this one, for me, is that it's a great place to keep all the smaller, lower interest, everyday bits of your life and your thinking. I'm not posting my most important work here, or my deepest feelings. I'm posting the unconsidered trifles that occur to everyone everyday, that might turn into something, but which'll probably just blow away. And the great thing with the blog is that they just sit here until they come in handy. Or don't. And they're all searchable.

That's how I use it anyway. It's like a personal corporate archive, a searchable depository of little thoughts, quotes, images and ideas. (And it tells me that on August 25th 2003, I was almost stuck in a lift, which I wouldn't otherwise have remembered.)

And it's more than that, it's also a way of building value via accretion (how do you like that jargon?) by which I mean this:

Blogs are a tremendous way of starting things. Any little idea you have, you can start it off, in a very low effort, low key way. And maybe you'll never come back to it, but maybe you will and maybe you'll extend it and then maybe a year later, or whenever, you'll actually have achieved quite a lot. Without really meaning to.

You've built something interesting through the casual accretion of lots of tiny things, rather than the determined effort of one big thing.

Now, of course, if I got my tagging a bit better sorted out that 'personal corporate archive' could stretch across lots of things - Flickr, Backpack, plazes etc. which would be even more useful, and if that integrated with my desktop and spare hard-drives I'd be even more happy.

But anyway, welcome to my personal institutional memory. Enjoy your visit.

Comments

[Paul Wilson]

A really interesting thought - using a blog like an ideas greenhouse. Or maybe a Lego is a better metaphor as ideas?

Simon Waldman at The Guardian has an interesting take on this. He talks about the importance of permanence to becoming part of the web. By permanence he means being able to find something and link to it. This allows people to piece together information and build bigger ideas.

[fernanda]

Hi Russell,
I like the idea of seeing the blog as something personal, light and not extremelly comitted to anything or any audience.
Sometime ago I had a felling that a blog must have brilliant thoughts in each post and this idea made me afraid of blogging.
Thanks!

[Anne Marie Biernacki]

This personal long tail is also a double-edged sword, as we recognize that more of our personal media available and persistent online also means more of our personal media available for manipulation, addition, and extension - with good and bad results. As the accumulation of the tail increases and draws our our own personal target audience, the interest and attention alone begin to breed their own derivative content.

[tv'srichardwilson]

I think rather than Chris Anderson, your real inspiration should be Geoff Boycott. He didn't really think about scoring centuries - every single run accumulated was a personal triumph for him. This is why he wasn't that bothered about hitting fours and sixes - far too flashy and indeed risky. Every forward defensive push through mid on meant his mighty batting average got a tiny bit better.