The Difference Between Blog Posts and Articles

"Who has time to read more?"

Depends on who's doing the reading - and who's doing the writing.

Many (if not most) of the blogs I subscribe to feature lengthier articles (Hugh McLeod, Ross Mayfield, either of the J. Moores, Evelyn Rodriguez among others). Even Godin, Peters and Anil go long form quite often. I'd still call them "posts", not "articles".

If it's interesting, I'll read it, either in RSS or if I need to comment, on the blog. Sort of the long copy vs. short copy argument. If it's compelling, it's not long.

But I don't think I'd look for full text in a separate newsletter. That's when it starts to take up time and space.

Just my $0.02.

Yes, there are compelling posts that are longer on some blogs and those are good examples. Hell, I've written some good long articles.

However, I have many thousands of subscribers to my newsletter and I serve them with longer articles that delve more deeply into subjects.

My preference is for blogs with short posts and I think the challenge of writing short is invigorating. People can choose to read the articles or not. They'll still get the gist in the blog.

I'm trying to deliver information in all the ways people want to receive it. I will be starting a daily newsletter of the blog posts shortly as well.

Our main blog's most read entries (and commented on too) by and large are longer than 300 words.

For example, this morning I made a post about a company and their advertising that was 1,231 words. Not only was the blog post read by the co-owner of the company but *he* responded in the comments area with more than 300 words (418 to be exact). And he did so in a little over an hour from the time the post was published!

Generalizations involving word limits can be near-sighted. If entries are too short, then it's a link blog of which, in my experience, are even harder to build a subscriber base.

Guess that means I'm with RichW. And this response is 122 words, BTW.

BTW, your entry is 83 words. Your response to Rich was 106 words. Both Rich and my first comment were longer as well as your. Thus we all provided more content to this page than the orignal blog entry. Who has time? Apparently all three of us -- in the comments area.

My take on the difference between a "blog post" and an "article" is the standalone nature of the writing.

For me, a "blog post" carries very little meaning unless someone follows the links to the original source material. An "article," while containing links, summarizes enough of the information that one doesn't need to leave the page to catch the gist.

Most of my posts are in the 200-300 word range. The ones that are longer hinge on things quoted several paragraphs into the source. It's easier for my readers to catch my context if I blockquote it than if I force them to dig for it.

I prefer articles, because their relevance survives broken news links. Articles can still be under 300 words -- and those of us who sharpened our blades in broadcasting can make it fit.

You are spot on Ike. As Mark Twain once wrote "If I had more time, I would have written less." It's hard to write tight.

I wrote a long comment at Shel Holtz's site, defending your remarks about how feeds should not be full post/full text, and how comments are important to blogs.

The captch is not working correctly. It rejected my comment, message said I did not enter the word in correctly, but I did. Word was "county". Stupid captcha. All that defense of you lost forever.

I should know that you must always copy a comment prior to attempt to post it. Sigh.

Blogs without comments are sermon pulpits, unless they're link logs like Robot Wisdom.

Many blogs do not enable comments because the bloggers are scared of harshing, cannot handle conflict, and cannot defend their opinions, feel the harsh comments will make them look stupid, which they probably are.

Blogs are superior to web sites due to the interaction via comments that users may take advantage of. People are sick and disgusted with unilateral mass messaging. It sucks.

:^)

Love your blog, BL.

I read a TON of RSS feeds in planes when I'm not connected to the Internet. You are penalizing me by restricting your content.

Why? Why piss off your reader? Why not give him or her everything you got?

Robert: I'm certainly not wanting to piss anyone off. I do want to keep my blog posts under 300 words because I think short is better when it comes to blogs. If I need to write more than that, I think it ought to be in an article, or a report, or a white paper, but not a blog post.

So 300 words isn't a partial feed for my blog, it's a full feed for my posts, And setting that limit helps and challenges me to edit down to under 300.

IMHO most of the time writing long is just lazy.

A blog post has to be something really complex and compelling for me to read it if it's long. And to be honest, I haven't seen a lot of those.

Robert Scoble told me that in my case, full posts should not be in my RSS feeds, because my posts always are accompanied by 150 KB digital artwork.

I can see both sides of this debate.

I don't think it hurts to click twice, once for feed, second time for full post. But Robert has a point about reading feeds without internet connection.

I offer feeds to my blog readers, but I have yet to get around to downloading a reader to personally use.

I think it may be good to mix long posts with short posts, but also to avoid posts that are much too long. Depends on audience, topic, industry.

My earliest posts on Vaspers the Grate were mostly carefully researched, heavily hyperlinked articles that tried to fully cover a topic.

Only recently have I blogged "off the cuff, from the heart", stating opinions, reflections, observations, general principles, insights from Derrida, etc.

I've had more readers compliment me on writing long, complete posts, and many complain about posts at other blogs that just link to other sources, without much commentary or analysis.

Many styles of blogging, many types of readers.