Reach Out to Your Fellow Bloggers
A few days ago, I read a post about email: About Writing Other Bloggers Email . It’s a reflection on the joy of emailing other bloggers. Not so much as a way of commenting on their posts (though not excluding that), but as a way of connecting with the people behind those posts.
Shortly after that, on Bubbles , I read a reply to that: Re: About Writing Other Bloggers Email . It’s a short note that I found very relatable. The author, like me, thinks about emailing other bloggers, would like to make a habit of it, but so far has not followed through much. I know the feeling.
I have sent both of these people a message, so that’s a start. One of the things that keeps me from doing it more is overthinking what to say. In the end, I kept it to a simple “hey, I saw your post and I like your blog.” Every now and then I get an email to that effect, and it always is a pleasure. It is unfortunately satisfying, in 2026, simply to recieve an email from an actual human being.
Email Is A Social Network
There is a way to take this even further. A few weeks ago I read an interesting post about a certain “workflow”—blogflow is perhaps a better word?—for the smolweb. The Social Smolnet . The post talks about some specific software, namely offpunk . I have not used it, but it seems to be a browser designed specifically for the small/indie web.
The specific software is not the interesting part. To me, the interesting part is the philosophy I see in this post. It makes the case for a social network composed entirely of blogs and email. What if you looked at your RSS feeds not just as a list of interesting people to listen to, but as a contact book, a list of interesting people to talk to?
I love that idea. And I think it gets to the heart of things. We aren’t writing all these posts about email because email is so great in and of itself. We are writing about it because email is a tool for connecting.
Conclusion
Email is nice. So I’m going to end this post with two things. One is a pledge to send more emails to the people who’s posts I read. And two is a bit of shamelessness: I would love to get more emails from all of you. My inbox is open.
