I want my old blog back
I used to have a better blog. It accommodated and focused my thinking instead of limiting and scattering it. I'm just writing this evening to say I want my old blog back. I liked the freedom. My ideas flowed better.
by Dave Winer Friday, May 5, 2017

Before 2010, on my blog, I could have long and short items. I could use HTML. Link to as many places I wanted, where ever I wanted. There was no character limit, so the short items could grow if they needed to. The same format could accommodate post-length bits with titles that were archived on their own pages. Every item appeared in the feed, regardless of length, regardless of whether it had a title. I could shuffle the order in a given day, easily, because the text was on rails, edited in an outliner. 

It was great. I didn't know how good I had it at the time.

When Twitter became popular it threw a monkey wrench in my blogging act. Where to put the short items? So I stopped posting small items on my blog. And everything needed a title to make Google Reader happy.

There was a gap, items that were longer than 140, or had multiple links, but were too short to get a title. There was no place for them. So much work for something small. 

I'm just writing this evening to say I want my old blog back. I liked the freedom. My ideas flowed better.

You know some of blogging is about writing for other people, but I also write to organize my thinking. Scattering things all over the place makes me disorganized. I want it help me focus, to factor my thinking.

PS: Here's an example of a day on my old format blog, chosen at random. Another. Two more.