Tips on how have “multiple blogs” in one…

Michael “TechCrunch” Arrington long ago started his personal sideblog, CrunchNotes;   “GigaOM” Malik also felt compelled to launch The Daily OM, both feeling that the occasional lighter, shorter tidbits they feel like writing about are a distraction from the main theme of their professional blogs.  Others will likely follow:  “In the year that I’ve been blogging in a daily basis, I’ve also felt the need for an alternative page where I could have shorter, pithier posts, focused perhaps on a broader range of subjects.”   says Michael Parekh. 

He does not want to start a new blog though, instead wonders when blogging platforms will offer multiple tabbed sections, more flexibility to present content, essentially becoming full-fledged publishing platforms: “We need to break out of the strait-jacketed approach to blogs to date and think more out of the Blog box.  It feels like we’re overdue for some change.”

I’m looking forward to the dream platform (as long as it’s still simple to use), but until then here are a few tips to get more or less of what Michael is looking for.

• B2evolution offers tabbed blogs, here’s an example.   This is the SQLFusion corporate blog, where individual authors  have their own tab, and all posts roll up to the main tab.   Of course nothing compels one to use it in a corporate, multi-user environment; tabs can represent major subject headings which could be further structured into sub-categories, or one could use just use two tabs for the “main theme” vs. the tidbits.
• We could achieve similar results on the major platforms today, by  simply using categories creatively.  Create categories for your major subject matters, and one for the hodgepodge. Now, I don’t know if TypePad allows this, but on Blogware I can prevent entire categories, or individual posts from “bubbling up” to the Main category, which means those posts would not show up for someone who casually scrolls down on my main page, you’d specifically have to click the relevant category to see the article. 
• Taking this concept to the extreme, you could decide to NOT have any posts in the main category at all; instead create a single page with  bulletpoints, or graphical icons if you like, pointing to the URL of your categories.   This page becomes your table of contents, and categories serve like the tabs Michael is looking for.
• A less radical implementation is to use categories as you do today, let all the “professional” ones flow up to the main page, but create ONE category that does not bubble up to Main for all the hodgepodge.  Then create a graphical badge on your sidebar, with the URL to the hodgepodge category – this will be the link to your other, virtual sideblog.

Have more creative ideas?   Please comment or trackback.

Update (2/17):  I did not expect this discussion to rise to Memeorandum, but it’s there, as well as on Megite. Others on the subject:

• Survey: Page 3 Required?
• OM Goes Daily with “The Daily Om”

Tags: Blogs, Blogging, blogging platform, TypePad, BlogWare, BlogHarbor, Categories, Creative Blogging, Virtual Blog