My javascript / tech / web development newsletter for 2021-03-20 is out!
In this week’s edition:
NFTs, Substack, Eth51%Attack, NetlifyDevEnvs, Prediction Markets, EDMGirls, NBAMoney, PortableOffice, IoT, TikTok, Wikipedia, IntelChips, DApps, Slack Websockets, Ghost, pods, artists & musicians
https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/mark-smiths-newsletter-20-03-2021
Would love to hear any comments and feedback you have.
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Hi Mark!
I think some more formatting would really help. That's a lot of topics for a single newsletter, and as a reader I like to be able to scroll through and find out what interests me, especially when the newsletter is more aggregation/curation style.
I can see your style is more of a stream of consciousness type of writing, I think that's awesome. Have some headlines/subheadlines/etc as you roll into new topics could be really helpful especially to new readers.
Thanks for the feedback @alexanderg - I really appreciate it.
I’ve been thinking about exactly your point the last few editions.
At the start I didn’t have much of a process or structure apart from all the links I collected. But it was getting confusing and laborious to put together the newsletter intro each week.
The initial structure was just:
But recently the intro has evolved a bit and I actually created a template that I update throughout the week and copy and paste Into the intro, then flesh out each week.
So I might use the headings from that in the intro, which would make it a bit easier to navigate.
I’m conscious of the length. It’s just so difficult to remove items because as I find and post them, a sort of narrative forms, and major themes emerge, removing items often breaks the narrative flow.
What do you think about the intro links pointing to the linkblog items rather than the final article? Is that kind of context, interesting or useful?
Unless it's made clear to the reader that you have more to add about a subject on the linkblog, a would expect a link to go directly to the source of what you're referring to.
There is often more context and commentary on the linkblog. I see what you mean though, you do sort of expect a link to go directly to the article.
The intro is really a sort of nicely written index to the linkblog items, it aims to draw the meta picture / narrative that is emerging from the links.
I wonder if there is a way to link internally on the newsletter, from the intro to the linkblog item at the bottom of the newsletter.
Would that make more sense?