I got this email from Michael Fraase today about yesterday’s post on the importance of categories. Mike has been blogging for years and is the managing editor and webmaster for Utne.com.
Categories are important for sites with lots of entries, and, as you mention, discrete “sections” or “departments.” But there’s a downside. If readers start honing in on one or two categories, they potentially miss out on the serendipity of discovering something interesting in a category they thought they weren’t interested in. And then you get into the feature creep of each entry being assigned to one or multiple categories. Ease of use trumps everything else. Everything.
Most recent entries? Isn’t that the definition of weblog?
I can’t imagine trying to get a tech-adverse businessperson or civil servant to use any of the server-based content management systems.
