I’ve been blogging for the Post since 2007 or so. Why bother doing another blog on the side now?

One reason: Writing in a system maintained by my employer for its own purposes shuts me out of many parts of the typical blogging experience, such as playing around with the basic design of the page whenever I like or seeing real-time readership statistics. Plus, the paper just switched to a blogging system that the ombudsman, in a fit of charity, described as “a bafflement to most of us trying to figure it out.”

Another reason: While I’ve enjoyed using my public Facebook page as a blog substitute for sharing my thoughts on journalism, technology and other issues that don’t fit in my work blog, that site isn’t set up for writing longer posts. It’s a pain to find older notes I wrote there. And, more important, it doesn’t seem such a good idea to use one site that I report on all the time as my primary outlet aside from work. I’d rather write those longer notes here, then link to them on Facebook.

Most of these reasons applied a year ago; I don’t know why I didn’t heed them then. In any case, please keep reading. I’ll try not to make this boring.