MeltingWaldo

Blogging is a broadcast, just like the old newspaper and less old television. I blog, you read. Sure, you may comment, but once a post is up there, it’s not often refined or refactored further.

There are some advantages to this unilateral approach. Firstly, it’s much quicker to write on your own - no waiting for a glacially slow editor. Secondly, for a contentious topic (or even a seemingly uncontentious topic), a coherent argument makes much better reading than a schizophrenic arguing from every viewpoint. Thirdly, a personal voice can be lost in the noise of differing writing styles when there are too many contributors.

The flip side? In this era of increasingly cheap collaboration, co-writing can help you flesh out and improve your ideas before you release them into the wild. When I’m ranting about “software and process patent insanity” or “why an imperfect wiki is better requirements than a perfect document”, I might notice that my co-author has fallen asleep - in turn saving you from a great deal of pain. Having a peer means the old-fashioned benefits of a newspaper editor, relevance, accuracy and hilarity, are gained. And (not that there are any), but any weaknesses and quirks are identified and ruthlessly squashed.

So this is it, right here - one blog, two writers.