Technorati used to quote a saying on its page (which I can’t see anymore): So many million blogs; some of them must be good. You’ll have to excuse my paraphrase as I can’t remember how it went exactly.
There’s a bit of a tendency to think: there are so many blogs out there; how can I compete? Well, firstly you can’t, and secondly, maybe there aren’t as many blogs out there as you think.
Take a walk from blog to blog on Blogger.com – or mySpace or one of those other large blogging sites. My guess is that you’ll find 75% of the blogs have either been started in the last month, or have stopped functioning. An enormous number of bloggers just run out of steam. It takes a kind of commitment – and madness – to keep on writing blogs, especially when you find that probably nobody comes to read the darn thing anyway. If you’re the sort of person who will write whether people read you or not, then you’ll cope. If you’re the sort of blogger who wants instant – or semi-instant – gratification, then you’ll quickly find that blogging isn’t for you.
The best bloggers have a focus and can write. Good bloggers often want to sell something, even if it’s only themselves, or to discuss and research a topic, and do it in minute detail. I’m not a blogger in any of these senses, and my main reason for blogging is because when I’m sitting in front of the computer typing away, I’m happy. I like writing. Words are my good friends. So you won’t find me promoting any one thing on this blog, or offering you umpteen amounts of research. I’m a gadabout blogger, and that’s fine.
2 comments:
All good points, and very true. I would say the attrition rate is very high.
Last time I checked there were over 70 million blogs. I visit blogs all the time in searches that have not been updated for months and even years.
70 million!!! Good grief.
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