When blogs go dark.

by Saul on 21 September 2010  |  6 comments
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This blog has been quiet for too long, here is the reason why...

"Really great blogs do not take the place of great microprocessors", Larry Ellison of Oracle (Corporation) once said of the prolific blogger Jonathan schwartz, CEO of sun micro systems. So the story goes, Oracle had just acquired Sun "on the cheap", and Larry took exception to Jonathan's over zealous blogging.

It is with this quote that I return to my blog, after a self imposed, but not entirely purposeful 6 month exile. I am going to attempt to justify this exile by simply stating there has been no time for blogging whilst we have been building out our great product (read microprocessor).

I am not sure I buy the Schwartz-excuse to blogging, so I began to ponder why I have struggled to muster the inititiative to blog recently. I have put my inability to blog down to two main areas.

I have nothing to say (on this topic). Difficult to blog about an indevelopment personal finance site. I am always conscious of not using this blog to sell our product. Put simply, the product should do a good job of doing that itself. A lot of the innovation in this space, which would be ideal blogging material, is pretty much wrapped up in "secrecy" for one reason or another. The online personal finance industry is pretty familiar in the UK. We work with lots of partners, and clearly they need to come first, so to a certain degree I am hamstrung by what I can say - not that it is controversial, just that it is appropriate only to small sectors or niches. If I speak broadly, I think it is boring. Does anyone really care about the latest additions to comparison tables for savings? In many ways, I believe that sort of sums up the industry in the UK. It is a big industry, but there is not so much differentiation, so everyone sort of knows what everyone else does. It is really just about doing it well, but I am not so sure that is such a great topic to discuss publicly. 

When I do have something to say, it would be better not to say it. By February I had received 3 complaints, and I had only written 9 posts! I felt that was pretty poor form, and I like to model myself as an amiable chap. Perhaps a self imposed exile was the best thing, go away and question my values. Having re-read previous posts, I think it is all pretty tame to be honest. Obviously everything in this blog is my own opinion, and not the opinion of lovemoney.com ltd (disclaimer), but I think I will continue to keep saying it as I see it. I hope compareforgood has made a lot of money for Oxfam, but I honestly doubt it. I did however really like Joan Collins in "Empire of the ants", although people tell me her seminal work was in "the stud" (which, incidentally, I have not seen).

So, expect a more virulent and sustained approach to blogging from me over the next 6 months, I fully expect to sail past the number of posts I have done in the last six months.   

I will try to find interesting things to say about the industry, and if that is not possible, I will find interesting things to say about lovemoney.com, as we continue our independent quest in to the world of innovation and business.

If nothing else, I promised the Publishing Director that I would blog this week, so at least that should give her a pick me up. Small steps...