compare and contrast

In his latest post, John Gruber seems to be following Robert Scoble in adding a personal strand to his tech-centric blog Daring Fireball. Both are full time tech bloggers but take a different approach to both stands of their writing.

Scoble usually posts many times a day, varying in length from short notes on something that has just occurred to him, to longer more journalistic pieces. Whilst the majority of his output is tech, this style applies also to his family-orientated observations, most movingly to his mother’s recent decline and death.

Gruber on the other hand is the king of the long, considered, journalistic piece, most recently his analysis of the wireless MacBook hack (or non-hack, depending on your view).  Concomitantly with this he tends to post more infrequently, dealing with particular issues that coincide with his tech interests, rather than a running commentary on bits and pieces.  This pattern changed however with this vacation post, well written in his usual considered style but dealing with parenthood rather than typographical standards or Mac OS developments.

I wonder what has prompted Gruber to branch out?  It raises an interesting question about why readers keep track of particular bloggers – is it for their insights into a particular field or for something akin to a newspaper columnist’s take on the world around them.  I think Scoble successfully combines the two and it will be interesting to see if Gruber can do the same in his own, more long winded way.