Casual writing, the new age of media. Good or bad?

November 10, 2009
Posted by Ryan Graves

Casual writing, the new age of media. Good or bad?

casualwriting

This blog post is not meant to be insightful or meant to share an opinion on any particular topics. It’s sole intent is to ask you your opinion. I have a question.

Is the casual style of writing that comes along with blogging a good thing or a bad thing for society?

Some times I still have my parents read over my writing and usually their reaction is that it’s too informal. I write like I speak and often times that means grammatical errors, slang terms, and off the cuff remarks. What’s the big deal? Well, recently there was a phenomenal blog post on the Fake Steve Jobs blog about ‘why mainstream media is dying’.Whoever the fake Steve Jobs is, he wrote…

And to all those people who go around wringing their hands and saying what are we going to do when the “real newspapers” all die and we have to get our news from Gawker and HuffPo and TechCrunch? Friends, I think we’re going to be just fine.

Part of it is the form of the media itself. If you’re a reporter at the Times, you get one story, and a fixed number of inches, and you’re smothered by layers of editors. At TechCrunch it’s one guy who can get his teeth into something and there’s no limit on how many articles he can do.

I love this. He points out that the agility of the informal publishing platform of a blog is what will allow so many people to eventually make the “standard” journalism world irrelevant. But back to the question, is this casual style bad for the overall reporting of news and how society consumes it?

I think not. I think that a less formal style of writing will eventually be the way that most of us consume the news. Obviously good writing will rise to the top, and that’s why I encourage current newspaper journalists to team up, leave their paper, and start a top notch blog with higher quality writing and coverage. But the print is going to die, it’s just a matter of time, and it would sure scare me to work in a known dying industry. But if that journalist is really good, they readers will come.

Penelope Trunk wrote a great post last month on why the internet has created a generation of great writers. Her last argument, which I really like…

Finally, for those of you who think students don’t know how to write in full sentences, you are the people who probably don’t understand how to use text as a persuasive medium.

In summary, I think that the style of writing that is most affective is changing. It’s more casual but like most successful things these days, it’s more personal, it’s more comfortable, and it’s more fun. Looks like I did end up sharing an opinion. But, like I stated at the start, what I want to know is what do you think? Is this style of writing that I employ and that so many others are beginning to use good or bad for readers?

image via flickr

0 Comments

Posted Under Mistakes & Lessons Technology

Ryan Graves

@min viable - would love if you'd use a real name so that we could engage
offline (phone). I appreciate your insightful comments and conversation.

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min viable

Absolutely--the personal might not even be entirely distinguishable from the professional, particularly at the earliest stages of a venture, when the entrepreneur embodies his endeavor--

(Thanks also for the blog's inaugural comment--provided impetus to double-check/re-integrate Disqus!)

(Thanks also for the blog's inaugural comment--provided impetus to double-check/re-do integration of Disqus!)

Not poor taste at all. I'm happy to read the post. This is a very
interesting topic. I think it all depends on the intention of the blog. If a
successful startup founder launched a blog to write haiku's is that going to
speak to his entrepreneurial style? Maybe not.

It is an interesting idea however, and I'll read both posts.
Cheers,
Ryan

Yesterday Venture Hacks asked--"True or False: The quality of a founder's writing is a leading indicator of the quality of his startup" [ http://twitter.com/venturehacks/status/6485394550 ]--that called to mind this post and these comments.

A follow-up question: What characteristics might distinguish the blogging of the type of founder likely to lead a quality startup?

I would propose simple/spare/authentic/short+sweet, per http://sharingwhenuncool.blogspot.com/2009/12/e... (I hope linking to my own blog post is not in poor taste; will readily remove!)

Steffan Antonas

...that's why we blog. ;-)

If nothing else, I love this blog for the people that it brings me in
contact with...

I'm with you, Penelope and the rest on this: writing well on the web is about communicating with your own personal, authentic voice, and blogging teaches you to communicate well. The fact that people are getting good at it is definitely a good thing. That said, formal writing has its place and value - it's just a different skill and it doesn't add much value in the social sphere. You're approaching blogging the right way. If you start getting syndicated to the NYTimes tomorrow, then you should probably go a little more formal. Until then, carry on.

@evreeland - awesome point.

"They are worried that their ideas will be dismissed because they weren't written in a professional manner."
I love this because it couldn't be further from the truth. By keeping your writing simple you're probably going to be heard/read by more people and in turn they're going to want to read more in the future because they actually learned something. Fred Wilson is a phenom example of this on his blog AVC.com. He discusses complex topics of Venture Capital but does it in a fascinating and simple way.

Thanks for the comment man!

evreeland

I think that the way writing is evolving is a great thing. It's taken me up until now to realize that the way we are usually taught to write in high school and for the most part college is bland and boring. Structured, maybe, but no one really wants to read thesis followed by evidence, evidence, evidence, conclusion. Paragraph after paragraph.

Last year I had to write what was up until that point the most important paper of my college career, my Princeton Junior Independent Work. I wrote on how varying income tax levels affect levels of entrepreneurial activity. It was about 40 pages. My mother couldn't even get through 10 pages, I thought it was so boring I didn't even want to proofread it, and I still got an A.

I think people are scared to accept casual writing because they are afraid they won't get taken seriously. They are worried that their ideas will be dismissed because they weren't written in a professional manner. This notion is slowly changing for the better, and people are realizing writing can be fun, enjoyable to read and write and still incredibly informative.

THE DREAM IN ACTION

By Ryan Graves

Casual writing, the new age of media. Good or bad?

image via flickr