Ampers & Dot

Look, I’ll admit it: I like the big shot tech bloggers. I enjoy WSJ’s Mossberg and Pogue from the NYT so much that I’ve even added them to my blog roll (trade links, guys? No? Oh… ok- that’s cool).

If you’re not already reading these sites, now’s a good time to start. They both have the ability to write about complicated and geeky things in a way anyone can understand, and more impressively, anyone can find interesting. This brings me to the point of today’s post: quality blogging with relevant content.

Yesterday I wrote about the millions of tech blogs out there, the justification of adding another one, and why I hope mine is different. Plus, a few posts ago I wrote about this blog’s name (which it’s fair to point out as completely unoriginal), being difficult to decipher and thus fairly useless.

Well yesterday Pogue wrote an exceptional piece about “Seussical-Sounding Web Site Names”, which was both poignant and hilarious. In the post, Pogue breaks down inane naming of web sites and start-ups and how the new trend is to have a “Web 2.0”ish sounding website.

As mentioned a few times already, I hate the overuse of the term Web 2.0 (as does Pogue, I think), and the fact that “Web 2.0” can now describe a name of a website is just another sign of the times.

Pogue writes, “But here’s a little wakeup call: People will learn to love your site’s wacky name only if they fall in love with the site itself. Google and Yahoo became household nutty names only because everyone loved their services. They did not succeed because they had silly names.”

Now I realize that I have a long road ahead of me before AmpersandDot becomes a household name or anything… but I’m going to take this advice and aim to make my blog popular as a result of it being something worthwhile and relevant.

To circle back to the beginning here- there are millions of tech blogs out there. How many of them actually have fresh content? How many have a unique viewpoint (or as I joke, the most unique)? I mean, Pogue and Mossberg are popular because they’re good. They get their audience, write well, and call it like it is. Sure, it’s not like they always have brand new material, but when they write about things that are already well covered; they do it with a new opinion.

So that’s my goal: a new viewpoint that is interesting enough to read… And regardless of my relevance, I’ll also help you find fun links that you’ll enjoy reading or playing with.

And I promise, starting this weekend there will actually be some material too- not just more self-indulgent and self-referential diatribes.

I’ll be tackling Facebook this week- get ready.