2014-09-22

Barry Ritholtz on Blogging

Having been inspired by, and having borrowed from on more than one occasion, Domain Mondo owes a debt of gratitude to Barry Ritholtz, chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, author of "Bailout Nation," blogger at his own the Big Picture, a financial blog, and also writer for Bloomberg and the Washington Post, and interviewer on the Bloomberg podcast "Masters in Business." Barry has written the definitive piece on blogging in the Washington Post (at the link below, excerpts follow) which is well worth reading for anyone who writes, blogs, or has an interest to do so--

After 30,000 posts, Big Picture blogger has figured a few things out - The Washington Post (excerpts--read more at the foregoing link):

"Writing is a good way to figure out what you think. To quote Daniel Boorstin, the former librarian of Congress, “I write to discover what I think . . . After all, the bars aren’t open that early.”"

"In the early days, mainstream journalists were comfortable “borrowing” freely from blogs without attribution — not so much as a quote or a link to the original piece."

"Content: creativity, criticism and curation... Original research and analysis that teaches about a subject or identifies something new or unknown is always welcome. Criticism of errors, myths and simple falsehoods helps the reader learn about the arguments of the day, and which claims should be looked at askance... Curation is the application of intelligence and judgment to the immense universe of content."

"Reader comments have become useless."

"Advertising is a terrible business model (unless you are Google)... Yes, there are many non-monetary reasons why I blog, but if you are in this for the money, you are wasting your time."

"It can be difficult for readers to distinguish between good information and distracting nonsense."





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