Huckleberries Online

OTV: Don’t Get Personal, Get Specific

Posted by DFO

March 13, 2009 5:31 p.m. • 3 comments

OrangeTV: I’ve found that it’s much easier to blog about a particular subject, in my case food & nightlife etc, than it is to maintain a general personal blog. I could never come up with clever enough stuff from my mundane life and I didn’t like the idea of unwanted eyeballs learning certain details. Now it’s fun to blog about my subject and interject my own point of view within that context.

Question (from OTV): If you were to start a blog about a specific subject (i.e., music, designer footwear, celeb gossip, artichokes etc.), what would it be?

Three comments on this post so far. Add yours!

hmoffsuite on March 13 at 6:12 p.m.
Moved from the other thread ….

OrangeTV. I think that because of the vast numbers of blogs out there, the more specific you can be and targeted, the better. I don’t think you want to shoot a shotgun, but rather a rifle with a scope. My wife’s cousin is a Chef in SanDiego. He worked for the Firestone family in Palm Springs and has cooked for 3 Presidents. (he is gay and a super great guy). He cooked for us at Christmas and I got into a blogging discussion with him and enouraged to get out there on the ‘net. He has some spectacular photos and wants to do a blog specializing in “Exotic Deserts”. I encouraged him as best I could but don’t know if he got it. The power of the internet, that is. I have another guy that was a photo journalist at the Baltimore Sun. He started a blog specializing in strobe lights or something and was making a hundred grand a month from Google Ads. It is a big hit from what I understand.
Liz on March 13 at 8:43 p.m.
weeell…since I HAVE a blog (http://mylifesafreakshow.blogspot.com for the interested parties out there…) maybe this one’s not really for me. I can tell you how I zoomed in on my topic though. I have read blogs for years. Mostly craft blogs (knitting and quilting primarily) and Christian blogs and mommy blogs. I knew I did not, not, NOT want to be a “mommy blogger” For one thing, I just think that it’s an incredible invasion of your children’s privacy. If I hated Kathie Lee using her kids to make a buck, what makes me think this is an OK thing??? Besides, there’s only one Dooce.

I knew I was not interested in craft blogging. I really wanted to break into writing and documenting my projects seemed a piss poor way of doing it. It just wasn’t my cuppa. But more power to ya if that’s your thing. I still like looking at your eye candy.

Christian blogging…well…I managed to piss off a lot of peeps in the blogosphere. Definitely cooler worthy stuff (shhh…don’t tell DFO). I was troubled that I wasn’t representing Christ very well by being so argumentative on other people’s turf. You know how these flame wars can escalate… Finally it occurred to me one fine day that starting my own blog might defuse some of that feeling of powerlessness when people expressed opinions that got the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. Ta da. I started out blogging mostly about social issues, law (since I was fresh from a two time rejection from Gonzaga Law) Christianity…maybe a blogging wannabe Hannity.

Over time, as I have prayed and changed, my blog has changed. More personal stuff like what is going on in my head. Youth issues. Music/media stuff (since once upon a time I wanted to go into radio; it’s crept back in). Recovery stuff. Still a lot of Christian stuff but less on the political angle and more on the God and faith angle.
I think I have gotten nicer than when I first started blogging.
The day I pull God out of my blog though, in the interest of getting blog hits or whatever though, is the day I need to stop doing it.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.