I’m really not sure I’ve ever understood your reasons for doing this blog, so I’m not sure I’m in a position to give you advice about how to do it.

I think you’re committed to the public service function, but if that’s so, you’ll have to make many more compromises in terms of depth and complexity, and take some ad dollars (or whatever people do to increase traffic).

I think you also believe that you can work out ideas here that you need in the scholarship you intend to publish for professional audiences. But you’re really only getting me, and Brayden and Kieran and Jeremy, Matt, dk…whatever…you’re only getting an email distribution list’s worth of feedback. The only way that’s going to change is if you say more inflammatory stuff about big names who blog in the hopes that they choose you as an internet interlocutor. And that kinda sounds like it sucks.

Where does this leave us? Well, I could be just plain wrong, in which case, it leaves us extolling the virtues of bacon, since we can’t agree on your blog. OR, it suggests that you have modest audience goals, but promote numbers and value by acting as a commenter–but one with a decidedly sociological perspective.

Imagine for a minute that your blog plays the same function as that groovy Big Pot of Money series over at This American Life. You can take the economical and make it fantastical. Tell us simpletons what questions matter, why they matter, and what do to once we understand their significance. That’s what I, for one, need more of. And I’d trust you to do it for me.

Or not.

I really want to hear what you think. What your perspectives are. What you think the world looks like.

Sure, but keep in mind that I’ve got 135 subscriptions in my RSS reader. The easiest route is probably to see my own ‘same few posts over and over’

Also, what mah said.

So basically, I have no answer for your question, other than to say I really, really like reading your blog. In the end, I think writing a blog has value in and of itself. Don’t change your style just Peter.

DK: Well, I can be more provocative, but I’m not really sure how much more without being a total dick. More interestingly to me is your suggestion about what I want. I don’t think it’s ‘drive more traffic’, since I don’t have intentions to host ads.

I want discussion – not ‘open thread – discuss’, but I want dialogue and discussion with the (few) people who read posts. I really want to hear what you think. What your perspectives are. What you think the world looks like.

In my idealized world, I want to cultivate a community of people who are interested in a group of topics or ideas and want to share. I mean, my job is isolating enough as it is, I’m not sure I’m needing an online version of it.

Finally, thank you for the note about breaking new ground. There’s a temptation to be writing about the latest journals that come out, or the most recent conferences that people attended, and I think others are better and more interested in doing that than me. Funny though, rather than breaking new ground, on the contrary, I find that I write the same few posts over and over in different contexts.

Mah: Be clear, tidy, and fast, don’t write too much. Jeez, both totally true and my nightmare. I don’t know that I have said so before but I find writing normally like pulling teeth. The point for me of a blog was that I’m better in conversation than in print, and the blog would inspire me to write more by having printed conversations.

I guess lack less confidence about knowing economic soc than I do confidence about doing it online.

Matt: First, a close friend went to IA St. for civil engineering. Go cyclones. Second, this is the internet, everyone is qualified – or more seriously, I’d welcome even a quick shout-out to say more or speak in non-slang, or something. I’d like to know what kind of conversations would you want to be having?

Group-blog, that would take the pressure off. I’m thinking about it. The crazy thing is that my tendency is to post comments there more than post posts and link to theirs.

As a teaching-tool, I used my blog to run a class on art prices a couple years back. The blog was public class discussion, while I used Writeboard and Google docs to share data, analysis, presentations. But I had to scrub lots of it to cope with privacy issues – it would make this a much less public blog, maybe you use Blackboard or Courseworks, it’d be something more like that. For me and my students.

Thanks again for the comments, and I’m going to be trying to figure out how to incorporate them into my world a bit.

I think that part of the challenge of blogging on topics like economic sociology is that there just aren’t that many people who even know what economic sociology is – and of those, only a fraction will feel qualified to really discuss it with you. I’m wrapping up my Master’s – with economic soc arguably as my concentration – and I usually come away from one of your posts wondering if I am really cut out for this sort of thing. Well, except the Next Top Model liveblog.

The solution that seems to work the most consistently is to group-blog. Orgtheory is a good example, while scatterplot has too many disparate voices. Group blogging gives you a built-in, knowledgeable audience, someone to cover the gaps when you’re too busy to post, and more connections to people who might be interested in the subject matter.

I’m also intrigued by the blog-as-teaching-tool idea. Could you elaborate on that?

Economy is too important to Leave to the economists… keep blogging!

If you just mean comments or hit impressions (are you thinking of hosting ads?) there are plenty of posting styles to elicit them explicitly (eg. ‘what are you reading/watching/buying/riding at the moment’?) or implicitly (direct, provocative statements etc.) Tyler Cowen ‘cultivates’ his audience based on pithy ‘link-to’ analysis posts and succinct, timely opinion pieces. I don’t pay attention to his comments threads much, but it doesn’t seem like that’s really where the action is.

Comments are a pretty old-web style of interaction anyway. Figuring out where traffic is coming from on particular posts should be pretty instructive. If you’re looking to develop your interaction with the econ-soc/sts etc. communities, direct more posts explicitly to other blog posts (eg. this was said at scatterplot/socfin/orgtheory and I agree/disagree).

Also, I don’t expect every blog I read to ‘break news ground’ in the sense of being the first to report on a new blog or topic of interest. The ‘news’ part is getting to know what aspects you like and why etc.

I’m not sure what would increase participation, although you could try more pointed questions to try and start a particular debate/discussion on a given post. That would probably encourage me, at least, to try and think of a response.

Good luck, and I hope you decide to keep blogging!