Saturday, April 7, 2007

Blogging about blogging about blogs

I wrote a column once, years ago, about making money writing books about making money writing books about making money writing books. Comical as it was, it was a wholly viable plan, and the column was triggered by my realization that the author--whose name I've since forgotten--of The Well Fed Writer wrote a book about making a living as a freelance copywriter, but in interviews copped to the fact that most of his income (the vast majority, if I recall correctly) came from the book about how to make money as a freelance writer, not his actual work as a freelance writer.
Today, I'm taking on blogs. Recently, a friend of mine commented that she hated her blog, and it came as no surprise to me, because nearly everyone I know who has a blog hates it. Of course, there are bloggers who get paid to blog, and bloggers who have one particular subject they're passionate about and seem to be happy writing about, and bloggers who simply seem to journal online and be fine with it. Some of the most successful of these include naked pictures of themselves, which raises a whole different set of questions. And some include details of their sex lives; in fact, some serious litigation and some Capitol Hill firings recently followed the disclosure by one Congressional aide, on her blog, that another Congressional aide she'd spent some time with like to spank her.
But those seem to be the exception. These days, it seems that the average person has a blog. It also seems that the average person has no idea what to DO with said blog, and fluctuates between annoyance that he has this blog that he's now obliged to keep up with and guilt that he doesn't blog more often.
Interestingly, it appears that no one ever reads, or even sees, most blogs. If you check out the pages you'll find that the vast majority of blogs you find when flipping through blogger or a similar system have no page rank, and that Google hasn't even indexed them. That means no one even knows they're there, unless the blogger has sent out links. Often, he hasn't, because a lot of people seem to be embarrassed by their blogs, when they're not busy being irritated that they have them or shamefaced that they haven't posted in so long. So the source of the guilt associated with not posting is a bit questionable--it isn't as if there's an audience out there who's being let down.
On the other hand...the blogger isn't a blogger without blogging, right? And the prospective blogger must have thought he had something to say when he started the blog, or he wouldn't have taken the time to choose the colors and set up the blogroll and create his log-ins and slect the settings and all that, right?
So go ahead. Post.
No one's looking, anyway.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

fibinse::In India,there are still people who are superstitious.They take ill of the black cat crossing the road in front of them.When we classify them as superstitious, we are taking the stand that the cat was just a coincidence.
Well what about the thing inside the cat??
This is an incomplete anology but i hope u get the point.Ever thought: why are they trying to open up so much on an unanimate thing.Couldnt it be that animosity was disguising their loneliness here.Dont u think?
http:\\iamairborne.wordpress.com

Anonymous said...

I was talkin about "they" the people and "unanimate thing": the blog

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