A VC: Tag My Posts (continued)

I think blogs go downhill quick when the authors start to worry too much about what their readers think. I assume you started this (like almost all of us) for mostly personal reasons. Don't lose sight of that in an effort to appease a vocal minority of your readers.

Posted by: Chris | May 24, 2005 at 07:51 AM

Fred,

Are you writing for the benefit of your readers, for your business, or for yourself?

If you are writing for profit, you need to take the reader's needs into serious consideration. However, I don't get the impression that you are blogging for profit. I suspect that you are getting plenty of deal flow, and you've reported that the adsense revenue barely pays for the electricity your hard drive consumes in a month.

So, I think you are writing for yourself. Let me be presumptuous and suggest that there are two reasons that you write. One of the reasons is ego, and I don't mean that in a negative sense. You enjoy writing, observing that people read your writings, and getting feedback from the world.

The second reason appears to be a desire to "eat the internet dog food" that you invest in - to experiment with new technologies and get a first-hand taste of the opportunities and pitfalls that adhere to the blog world.

Both motivations give you reason to want to please the reader, but I agree with the previous comment - write what interests you and what you want to share with the world. I have enjoyed your blog for months, and would be sorry to see you post less often.

At the same time, experiment with tagging, multiple feeds, podcasts, and any other tools you find that help you beter organize and please the disparate reading community. Just don't assume that you know who that community is a priori!

So, write for yourself, and consider the fact that your readers have many different interests and preferences an opportunity to experiment.

steve

Posted by: An Entrepreneur | May 24, 2005 at 02:05 PM

Steve says it best, write what you want, as frequently as you want. The quality of your posts has only improved over the course of the time I've been hitting this board.

Keep up the good work!

Posted by: Tony Alva | May 24, 2005 at 02:22 PM

I am a non VC and find the VC talk interesting, as I am in a related field. But the reason I read your blog is for the package of VC talk and music. You have great taste in music and you like to talk about up and coming bands. I am always interested in discovering a new band.

Posted by: Dan | May 24, 2005 at 02:48 PM

Write what you want. The moment you try to tailor what you write to the demands of your audience, you're becoming a journalist creating a product, not building a relationship with a like-minded audience.

Your blog tells us who you are, and attracts the interest of those who respect not only your professional opinion but the passions and interests which shape it. You love music; you invest in HD radio. There is a connection.

Any entrepreneur looking for capital in an area you know will benefit from your knowledge. But, more than that, they will see their relationship with you as more of a win-win than one with somebody who looks flatly at the numbers and doesn't care about the journey. They will be more willing to negotiate to meet terms important to you and more willing to see your perspective on their problems and opportunities.

Stick to your passions. Don't omit anything you find relevant, even if others may not.

It's good for business.

Posted by: Gary | May 24, 2005 at 07:37 PM

I was one of the people who suggested cutting back in the previous post. Of course, I obviously think it's up to you (Fred) to write about whatever you like, but personally for me as a reader I'm still not sure I'm completely satisfied with the current options. Of course, you would be entirely justified in saying "sucks for you", but if you're interested in trying to improve my experience as a reader, I think the del.icio.us tags aren't quite sufficient.

Problems: RSS feed from del.icio.us just has links with headlines and not the actual article content, which makes skimming harder. Also, it seems that there is some susceptibility to spam in relying on del.icio.us links (people can post links to other sites tagged incorrectly as "avc"), unless I am misunderstanding something about how the tags work. Or is there some way I can change the settings in del.icio.us to fix some of these problems (I'm not too experienced with the site)? Then finally there's always the concern that some interesting articles of yours wouldn't get tagged properly, but that doesn't seem like as likely a scenario.

My suggested solution, which you are of course free to ignore, would be to simply provide two feeds; one purely for things related to business and the other with everything (business, music, personal). Or you could just break it up into three separate feeds and let people take any combination of the three they want. Surely there must be blogging software out there that can handle doing this?

Posted by: Ari | May 24, 2005 at 07:39 PM

Fred,
You have crossed the line between casual blogger and a media property! Congrats. The answer is add more channels :-)

VC Channel
Freds Channel
Family Channel
Music Channel

All have "gravity" in the eyes of the readers who value the content and then gravity attracts the "stars" and ahaha a "galaxy" of users will form.

Posted by: John Furier | May 24, 2005 at 08:37 PM

Hypothetical Situation:

1. I'm yet another VC blogger: http://www.nivi.com/blog

2. I covet your subscriber base that you have worked so hard to build.

3. I tag my own articles with your tag to gain subscribers. e.g. I spam your tag.

What's to stop me? The sooner we have tag anti-spam, the better.

Posted by: Nivi | May 24, 2005 at 09:03 PM

"Readers want less posts and more relevancy. In most cases that means less posts on music, family, etc and more quality posts on the vc business."

Well, I certainly don't agree. It's all relevant, to who you are, let folks skim through what they're not interested in, like they do with the Post.

Posted by: jackson | May 25, 2005 at 12:21 PM

fred,
I want it all - all the little tidbits. I am not a VC and don't really know anything about the field other than what is published in the MSM. But I do know about good music, raising kids, technology and nyc and those are the posts that interest me the most. Please don't stop telling us your full story. I think if you are pressured into writing something that you think people will find "relevant" - you will burn out / dry up and eventually give up.

Posted by: derek | May 25, 2005 at 06:17 PM

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