Why do people blog?
My buddy Laurence Rozier and I had an intriguing email exchange last week about why people maintain Web logs. We were talking about sort of normal people, not folks like me who have been writing their whole lives and just can't resist.
Do they publish a Web log because they want to be noticed? To have their opinions read and acknowledged by others? To influence public opinion? To change the world? To show off their technology (as opposed to writing) skills and savvy? Or do they do it just for the sheer, stinkin' fun of it all? Maybe they are interested in sharpening their brain skills or, as someone I read just this morning (someone will point me to the right place and then I'll adjust this reference), sending their brains to the gym.
I know. There's no one reason. There's not even one reason any one person blogs. But I'm curious to learn where the major sweet spots are. Most people with blogs (or, for that matter, personal opinion sites like mine) get read by relatively few people. Yet we keep doing it.
Maybe it's a variation on the theme underlying the advice I give aspiring young writers who email me and ask me how to get started on their own careers. I always tell them: "Don't write unless you can't not."
And maybe that's all there is to this blogging phenomenon.
What do you think? Let's talk about it on my personal site discussion board.
2:11:40 PM 
|
