racoma.netI love to write. I write to live. I live to love.

I had a walk back through memory lane. This revisiting was mostly of my old posts — circa 2008 and 2009. It’s quite interesting how much one evolves in a span of three years, in terms of writing. Back then, I managed the Blog Herald and Performancing, and I offered writing- and blogging-related tips and advice.

By: Tamara Smith

As  I write for a living, I find my three-year old articles to still be very much applicable to my profession. Even as I mostly write news reportage and enterprise-related editorials these days, one can perhaps still find underlying hints of the same writing style in my output. But what’s more important here is that I get to learn more about myself in looking back.

Back then, people still had time to read tips and advice on writing. Today, I think the online community has an increasingly declining attention span. Discussions have moved to microblogging services and social networks.

These discussions are not as sticky as articles, though. For instance, you can only go so far back in your Twitter timeline. Facebook discussions are the same, although it’s more straightforward to check out a posted article than a Facebook discussion.

Most great sites today use a combination of both: posting the main article on their blog or CMS and using a social-aware commenting plugin. As such, you can post your comment as your Facebook or Twitter profile. This simplifies the login process and helps reduce spam.

I still believe that these are just media, and the more important thing that drives value are content and engagement. Reading my old posts has been fun, though. I feel like I’m rediscovering myself.