I've been going through some of the Daring Fireball archives this morning, something I do now and again with my favorite sites. I reached the post where Gruber discusses the SXSW talk he and Merlin Mann gave in March 2009.
I'm pretty familiar with this talk, because I enjoy listening to it every once in a while. I rarely go back and listen to old podcast episodes but this talk provides so much meaningful advice that I can't help but return to it again and again whenever I need some inspiration. I have a 'Listen Later' folder in Instapaper and this talk never gets deleted, unlike everything else I've ever saved in there. It's that good.
I had forgotten about Gruber's article regarding the talk though, and as I was reading through it again, this quote smacked me in the face (emphasis mine):
"There is an easy formula for doing it wrong: publish attention-getting bullshit and pull stunts to generate mindless traffic. The entire quote-unquote “pro blogging” industry — which exists as the sort of pimply teenage brother to the shirt-and-tie SEO industry — is predicated on the notion that blogging is a meaningful verb. It is not. The verb is writing. The format and medium are new, but the craft is ancient."
I don't think I could ever put it any better that.
