Jul
The Federated Search Blog is a little over a year and a half old. The blog has been quite successful in reaching over 800 readers. But, something that has been nagging at me is the (self-imposed) pressure to publish frequently. I have usually maintained a pace of three articles a week, of varying lengths and degrees of depth. I’m shifting the focus of the blog to producing more well-researched in depth articles.
What it will take to publish more research-intensive articles is more time, which I have a limited amount of. I spend roughly eight hours a week on the blog. And, as you might imagine, the blog is not my only commitment. So, I’m going to rebalance those eight hours to give me time to focus on writing roughly one in depth article per week. I will also publish very short articles of noteworthy news - snippets if you will.
I’m looking forward to this change and I hope that you are as well. My desire is to cover the federated search industry with more authority. To accomplish this, of course, I will need to deepen my relationships with a number of you who follow this blog and with other experts who don’t. Bloggers generally fall into two categories, experts and reporters. I’m somewhere in between. By engaging more fully with a number of experts who have offered their industry insights I look forward to including more of that expert coverage.
I have a long list of interesting topics to cover and, through this “reorganization,” I’ll have time to explore and share them.
What do you think of the change? What in depth subjects would you like to see covered?
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Tags: federated search
5 Responses so far to "A shift"
July 15th, 2009 at 6:06 am
Just like to say I’m a big fan of your blog. My library recently purchased a federated search solution, and your blog was invaluable in educating me about various aspects of Federated search solutions.
I started blogging a while months ago and I understand the pressure to post frequently, but I get more value I feel from longer more detailed pieces (e.g. your series/ premiers on basics of federated searches).
I’m not sure if this is in your area of interest, but I’m curious about how ordinary users view Federated search solutions. Certainly most of them treat federated search as yet another search engine similar to Google, they aren’t aware of the differences (they haven’t read this blog!), so how should librarians educate them?
July 15th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Aaron,
Thank you for the kind words. I’m glad the blog has been helpful to you. And let me ponder your article request.
I enjoy your blog as well. You certainly do have in depth and worthwhile articles.
July 15th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
First off I wanted to thank you for the “heads up” you gave me about Deep Web Technologies-free research deep web search engines.Secondly I can relate to your reference to having limited time in which to accomplish everything we aim to complete on a daily basis.This is my first time reading your blog and have found it to be extremely interesting and thank you for taking the time to continue to write informative articles of interest despite you hectic schedule.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:25 am
David,
You’re quite welcome.
August 8th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Sol:
Smart move. I’ve been doing same thing with my blog and think people appreciate this approach.
Carl