Reflections on the state of the Web.
Reading
The quality of conversations on the Internet is terrible. Most platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc. optimize for engagement as their key metric. This spawns and rewards behavior that leads to bragging of gameable metrics such as likes and followers, self-feeding thought bubbles, knee-jerk reactions, “if you’re not
Blogging
A lot of people have asked me lately how I got my space blog listed on Google News. Doing so has enhanced the distribution of my articles and the Moon Monday newsletter on Google Search and News as well as other channels like the Discover feed on Android and Chrome.
Social Networks
I recently requested my Patreon supporters to move their patronage to my Donorbox so I can avoid Patreon’s high platform fees. Lately I came to realize that the actual cut Patreon takes from us creators is far higher than the cleverly advertised ~8-10%, which isn’t low to begin
Reading
Colin Walker recently listed blogs by female authors he reads, so as to promote diversity and improve representation of voices on the Web. It’s a nice idea, and so I replied there with a quick list of my own. But I think it deserves a proper blog post to
Social Networks
I was a panelist at an event in my city yesterday on space writing & journalism. It was nice, with lots of enthusiastic folks in the audience who had some good questions. However, literally everyone who engaged with me was trying to search my profile on Instagram. When they found
Writing
As I grew in my professional writing journey, I realized some writing mistakes I had been making for years. And they seem to be common among aspiring writers I keep coming across. So I’m sharing simple not-to-do tips here along with explanations. Don't add any images to
Writing
Scientists and engineers tend to write posts on the Web filled with jargon and dry, passive sentences, things common in research papers. Their academic training makes them write not just complex sentences but also deters them from reaching the “period” soon enough. If you’re a scientist, engineer or anyone
Writing
Here’s a sneak peek at how I gather and structure notes for writing each of my professional space exploration articles. The tool you see in action is the wonderful Workflowy, which allows you to structure thoughts to multiple levels of depth, and get in and out of each thought
Social Networks
Last year I deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts out of sheer disgust for their parent company and how their attention-economy-based business exploits people’s instincts and behavior at a fundamental level. The remaining popular social platforms of Twitter and LinkedIn, while not quite as evil, have similar business models
Blogging
The blog post Have you “Moved to Substack”? and a conversation around it reminded me of a recurring theme I’ve been noticing among people who love personal blogs. The theme being that most bloggers deep in their tech world and finely crafted websites don’t realize just how difficult
Social Networks
I want to use the case of Instagram to highlight a larger point about how we can be mindful of which links we share on the Internet. Whether you’re a writer, a creator or simply sharing things on socials, a “bad link” can affect your readers as well as
Blogging
A friend recently told me, “(Her) Blog feels like home.” I couldn’t agree more. That led me to think of analogies for social platforms and websites in terms of how much power and freedom they actually give you over your content. If we think of what you put out
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