One way to get blog attention, and how to recover

By Josh Bancroft (Intel) (57 posts) on February 26, 2007 at 9:56 pm

(reposted from my blog, TinyScreenfuls.com)

I was behind on reading my ISN-related feeds today, including some search feeds I have that alert me whenever someone links to our blogs. What I stumbled across was a quite a flurry of activity involving one of our ISN bloggers, Clay Breshears, reposting one of his own posts from 2003 (Why POSIX Threads are Better Than Windows Threads), but from the opposite side of the argument (Why Windows Threads are Better Than POSIX Threads). This apparent reversal got picked up on Slashdot, even though the "new" post is 5 months old, and, well, like most things on Slashdot, it proceeded to escalate from there... ;-)

I started getting worried as I read all the comments, because Clay seemed like he had dug himself into a pretty good hole, and the Slashdot crowd was piling on. I was getting ready to stage a Blogger Intervention(TM), but deep in the comments on his post, Clay posted an admirable reply, explaining his actions and motivations, taking a measure of blame, and basically doing what I think was a great job defusing the mob tension, while leaving the original subject (Windows vs. POSIX threads) open for continued discussion.

While I tell people all the time that being a little contrary or controversial is a great way to stir up some conversation on a blog, I can't say that I recommend doing something so extreme. :-) There's a line between controversy and publicity stunt. ;-) I'm not saying this issue was one or the other (I don't think it was a publicity stunt, because 5 months passed between Clay's post, and this showing up on Slashdot), I just don't want ISN to get a reputation for being sensationalist and contrarian just to attract attention. We'll leave that to Britney Spears and the tabloids. :-)

Categories: Intel® Software Network 2.0, Multicore

Comments (2) Comments RSS Feed

By Josh Bancroft’s TinyScreenfuls.com on February 27th, 2007 at 5:53 am
links from Technoratis post, and this showing up on Slashdot), I just don’t want ISN to get a reputation for being sensationalist and contrarian just to attract attention. We’ll leave that to Britney Spears and the tabloids. (alsoposted on the Intel Software Network blog)

By CHO on April 3rd, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Interesting


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