Blogging is back?

In today's episode of Dailyish, I share how a family conversation about social media led me to rediscover my late father-in-law's travel blog and a link to my sister-in-law's old blog, reminding me how refreshing plain, ad-free posts feel compared to today's algorithm-driven, promo-heavy sites. I reflect on blogging as one of the earliest forms of online self-expression, my own long-running blog at chrisenns.com, and the recurring cycle of people leaving and returning to blogging despite the easier likes and shares on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Links:

• You should start a blog
• Sign up for Buttondown
• Pika.page

Topics:
00:00 Intro
00:33 Family Blog Rediscovery
01:25 Why Blogs Feel Better
02:15 My Longtime Home Site
03:05 Blogging Comes Back Around
04:00 Own Your Domain
04:44 Easy Ways To Start
06:14 Tools Pika And Buttondown
06:50 Share Your Blog
07:06 Episode Wrap Up

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Creators and Guests

Host

Chris

I edit podcasts so you don't have to. I live in Saskatchewan so you don't have to?

What is Daily(ish)?

Challenging myself to record a podcast episode a day for my 50th year on this planet.

Hello, and welcome to Dailyish
for August 28th, 2026.

I'm recording an episode every day
for this, my 50th year on the planet

All right.

First of all, before I get into the
topic of this episode, I just got some

good feedback on the previous episode
on workflow and how I record daily-ish.

So again, feel free to send comments,
questions, whatever in wherever you

happen to see me posting about this,
or email me [e-mail]

with follow-up questions or
ideas for future episodes

Recently, we got together with my
wife's family and a couple of her

sisters and their families were here
or are still here as I record this.

But, we got talking one night about,
you know, just social media and the

internet and how people use various
apps and what they pay attention

to on social media, what they don't
like on social media, et cetera.

And my wife's sister commented on how she
had suddenly just rediscovered a blog.

While my father-in-law, her father, was
alive, he had written a blog about his

travels and the various places they went.

Kind of a little travel blog that
he didn't promote it a bunch and

tell a whole bunch of people about
it, but kind of just for the family.

And she had noticed it, kind of was
rereading it, and then while reading

a post on there, he had actually
linked to my sister-in-- her sister,

my sister-in-law's blog, talking
about her own adventures moving across

the country a number of years ago.

Well, it was interesting obviously
just rediscovering those old stories

kind of in the context of talking
about social media and timelines and

like how Instagram doesn't show you
anything that you actually want to see

anymore, and how it used to be that
you could just, you'd follow people

and it would just show you that.

Blogging and these blog posts were kind
of like this refreshing reminder of how it

used to be that you would go to a website
and you would just read the website.

There wasn't ads everywhere trying to
convince you like every, you know, recipe

blog and advice blog, et cetera, website
now has just ads everywhere trying to

get you to watch a video, trying to get
you to sign up for their app, for their

newsletter, go to their YouTube channel.

All the promotion that happens on
every single website these days,

and it was just barren, regular
plain text on screen, readable, nice

And it's interesting for me as a, a
tech person who's obviously been very

online over the course of my life, but
also came from the world before that

where we didn't have online life, and
blogs were kind of one of the original

ways for us to express ourselves online.

If you had a-- If you were new
enough to have a website and buy a

domain, you could probably figure
out how to set up a blog of some

sort and write things on a website.

So my website, chrisenns.com,

where I've had a blog for 20-some
years, I think, has my, been my home

on the web, and it's never gone away.

I've never-- There's been seasons where
I've stopped writing, and there's seasons

where I'm writing more and posting
more, but I've never really stopped.

And that's not to say I'm so great
I have never stopped that, 'cause

I've still spent way too much time
putting effort and energy into apps

and things of the day, like soc-social
media, like Twitter and et cetera.

We've all done that

And even within the tech world, blogging
kind of has this cyclical thing where

it goes away for a while because we're
all like, we love micro-posting on

Twitter or whatever apps that come along,
and then we rediscover blogs again.

And so, like within the tech world
where I exist for my work and, and

part of my online existence, I guess,
blogs kind of have this like every

four years, three to five years, they
kind of come back and everybody gets

excited about writing their own blog.

And then they realize that it's harder,
way harder to get likes and feedback on

your own site rather than existing on
corporate site like Twitter or Facebook

or Instagram, where you get likes and
you get comments and people share your

stuff much easier because it's just a
matter of hitting a button rather than

like having to figure out how to share
a link from a website, and then where do

you put that and how do you write your
own blog and all that kind of stuff.

And so, it's just funny to hear and
see quote unquote "normal people"

talking about blogging and being
excited at the idea of doing it.

And it kind of like is a bit of a
told- I told you so for those of us in

that blogging world and just web dev
tech whatever, in that from the very

beginning, the sort of mantra was always
own your own domain, own your own stuff.

You can share that out to Twitter
or Facebook, et cetera, but

own your content on your site

Sometimes it's referred to as
the indie web movement, indie

blogging, that kind of thing.

But at its core, it's basically like
you write your own stuff, great, put

it on your website and then share a
link to that outside to the rest of the

world via social media and et cetera.

But make sure that that site where they
come and read it is yours, not Twitter,

not Facebook, not Zuckerberg's, et cetera

Which reminded me of a blog post on
my blog that I'll link to in the show

notes back on December 2025 titled,
"You Should Start a Blog Now or Later."

And basically, I just kind of highlight
a few blogging CMS websites that

make it super easy to start a blog.

You don't even have to know
how to register a domain name.

You can just start with it.

One is Bear, one is Pika, and basically
kind of outlining how to start a blog

And generally, like the tech has changed.

There's cool new stuff happening.

Um, if you're on Blue Sky, there's a
whole thing called AT Proto for owning

your data, and then that allows you
to set up a blog and other things

like that using services like Pocket
Blog and Leaflet and things like that.

Doesn't really matter.

There's a- always new tech around this.

The core idea is like write your
stuff on your domain, own that, and

then you have control over where
it goes, how it's shown, whether

there's ads, whether there's, you
know, sign up for my newsletter,

those kinds of things on your site.

You're not subject to the
whims of the Zuckerbergs and

Musks, et cetera, of the world

I think if you're gonna ask me right
now what to do, how to start a blog,

I'd recommend checking out Pika.

Pika.page

is their website.

Sign up.

You can use it for free, or
you can pay $6 a month or $60

a year to get started blogging.

Another service to check out actually
is Buttondown, which is newsletter

sending, like email newsletters, but
it's also kind of like a blog, You can

use that very easily as a way to have
people be able to g- visit your website

or sign up and get it in email form,
'cause you can do both with Buttondown.

So buttondown.com

or pika.page.

Links will be in the show notes,
of course, at daily.chrisanns.com

If you've got a blog right now already
or you sign up for one and set one up

as a result of this, please let me know.

Reply to this on social media or
again, email me [e-mail].

I'd love to link to it in future
episodes and subscribe to follow

along with your blogging adventure

All right, that's it for episode 271.

I think this is day 10 now
in this little adventure.

355 more to go.

Thanks for listening.

Have a great day.

Bye.