Stumbled on a tech history Substack. I’m glad to see someone else in this space, but one of the challenges I see for this writer is that there’s not a lot of color in what they’re building. It jumps straight into the facts, no context, no voice.
I don’t mean to demean the work, to be clear, but I think the framing is a challenge. The article starts with the creator every time out, rather than the cultural context. You don’t get a lot of the “why” in the writing.
@jhp And to be clear, there’s passion in his writing, he means well. But he’s kind of locked himself into this chronological trap that sort of kills the nuance.
It’s not going to always be easy to write about this stuff after the fact if you weren’t there. But there are always ways.
This is not to say that he’s on the wrong track, or he’s bad at what he’s doing. But the choice to always start with “this guy was born on this day” means you’re skipping out on literally every other option for framing your story.
That makes it harder to hook people in so they keep reading.
The more serious problem is a lack of linking. He doesn’t tell you where he got this information. He shares images, but there’s no sourcing, no links to old articles or Internet Archive pages where you can see original materials.
I love the idea of having more fellow travelers in this tech writing space, but I am concerned that they’re missing out on some big opportunities to grab readers.
An example of a Substacker who I think does the tech history approach pretty well is Computer Ads From the Past.
@johnblood uses the actual ad as a framing element, and works backwards. It helps to tell the story of this weird thing and engages you directly in his research process.
@andybaio@benjedwards Yep, I remember that piece really well. We’ve gotten multiple great stories out of this single tale, and there’s something kind of beautiful about that.
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