I wasn't sure where to post this really, it's primarily intended as a question for Hashnode staff - however it might be prudent to get community opinions, so this is probably as good a place as any.
I've recently considered blogging again and I've been looking at how I might host my content, and there are three viable options:
This is a no for me. I've already got too many things to focus on, so the more moving parts there are, the more chance it'll get neglected. Simplicity is the key to ensuring I find the time and motivation to create content.
Being a Ruby guy, Middleman is quite attractive. I've also used it before, which helps. However self hosted solutions often have the added challenge of visibility, and require a little more effort to make them discoverable.
Facilitating user comments is also a challenge, since you've got limited choices: allow everyone to comment, allow nobody to comment, ask people to create yet another account on your system, or ask people to create yet another account on somebody else's system. Whichever way you cut it, you've either got spam or nothing but barriers preventing users from leaving comments.
Conversely, using an established platform means that you benefit from the visibility of the platform itself (how many times you do see a medium.com in your search results?), and if it's established enough it's likely your readers already have accounts (medium.com is a good example again).
I've mentioned medium twice above, because it's one of my viable options. The only issue I take with it, is that it's not a developer specific community - which means your audience is somewhat diluted, and its tools aren't always appropriate for developer related content. Most things can be worked around, but it adds effort and again increases likelihood of neglect.
And now comes the Hashnode part.. We almost have all the tools here, but as far as this platform is concerned I'm struggling with discoverability and also with the public facing blog interface itself.
In terms of discoverability, I rarely see Hashnode in my search results - which is concerning, although obviously it may simply be nobody has posted content relevant to the things I've been searching for. I worry that were I to use Hashnode as my blogging platform, that my posts might not be seen.
In terms of the public facing blog interface - there are a couple of issues here. Firstly if I go to my profile/blogs page, the design and layout is so unconventional in terms of a traditional blog that I'm not sure where to look. The Hashnode sidebar takes up a lot of screen estate and feels pretty overbearing, and with the bar on the right hand side the content is squeezed pretty thin and looks awkward in places. To be clear, my intent here isn't to criticise the Hashnode design - but rather to illustrate that as far as blogs go, it doesn't feel very "bloggy".
So my question is.. is this something that Hashnode considers needs addressing? Or to put a finer point on it, is a blogging platform still a part of the Hashnode vision, or should I consider other solutions instead?
Thanks for listening ;-)
No responses yet.