Founded by Scavin in 2005, Appinn is one of China's longest-running independent software discovery blogs. Known for recommending practical, interesting, free, or open-source niche software, it enjoys exceptional reputation and trust among software enthusiasts — proving that persistence in a single vertical can become a lifelong career.
Blogging for 20 years requires tremendous intrinsic motivation. If you're doing a content OPC, make sure you pick a topic you genuinely love and won't get tired of — external incentives (traffic, revenue) may be very low in the first 3 years.
From 2024-2026, Google's AI Overviews and China's AI search are reducing traditional search traffic. A content OPC that relies entirely on SEO will face continuously declining traffic over the next 3 years. Multi-platform distribution and brand awareness are the firewalls.
Self-hosted blogs require server maintenance, domain renewal, security updates, backups. These are easily overlooked in the enthusiasm of 'blogging' but become burdensome by years 3-5. Recommend using static sites (Hugo/Astro) + Netlify/Cloudflare Pages to reduce maintenance costs.
Appinn often recommends emerging software categories before they become mainstream, showing strong foresight. Markdown editors, RSS readers, password managers, and other now-mainstream tool categories were systematically recommended by Appinn years before they exploded. This 'ahead of the curve' taste has accumulated deep industry credibility.
| Digitaling: Interview with Appinn's Scavin — Sixteen Years of an Independent Blog | Media | - |
