TickTocking Tone

Probably the biggest influence on me in starting this blog was Fred Wilson of Union Square Venture’s AVC.com.  As the title suggests, he is a VC – a venture capitalist – involved in a lot of great Web 2.0 companies like Twitter, Foursquare, and Disqus, the service I use for the comments on this blog.
Fred’s blog is about his experiences and his opinion.  It does not rely on product reviews or news stories for content.  There are plenty of great blogs to get product info, news, videos, whatever else you want.  By keeping to his opinion, his content is completely unique.  I think you can see the parallels to TickTocking.

So I really liked Fred’s post today about editing himself.  I think he and I see the world very similarly and recognize the value of candor.  That being said, there is a limit.  Everyone knows that when their wife asks how she looks in a certain dress, there is only one right answer.

I had wanted to start this blog for years, but could not quite get the tone right.  I started writing private test posts.  One iteration was too far towards product and didn’t feel genuine.  One was too much complaining about major issues that I hate in the industry.  While it would have been a great read for a week, in the long run it would have alienated a lot of people, made it very difficult to do my job, and, at the end of the day, no one wants to read a bitter blog.

Finally, I think I found the right tone.  I am trying to be completely honest while focusing on things I like or find interesting.  If I have a major problem with something, it is best left out of the blog for everyone’s sake.  Yesterday’s post was the closest I have come to tackling a negative subject, but it was general and rooted in a news story.

I hope this project is coming off with the tone I intended.  I am so happy that some of you really like it.  If there is ever anything you want to see more or less of, feel free to let me know.  I may not oblige, but I would love to hear the suggestions.