So I find this whole blogging venture an amusing new learning experience. The idea of how to enhance your web footprint.While you may be confused by my post title, after checking the stats on my new blog consistently I’ve found the top searches that bring people to my page are “(strange,weird, or some other adjective) clouds” and “pirates”. If I didn’t have so many interests it seems I could become wildly successful blogging about those two things. Huh…
So in reality, I don’t have a clue about enhancing blog readership. Apparently the idea is to find your own blogosphere “niche”. I like to picture this in ecological terms where we’re all Galapagos finches picking over the same patch of ground – trying to look for the good seeds (or uh, whatever we’re currently adapting to eat). This blog thing is an interesting phenomenon, there’s lots of new questions on the social science regarding the why of blog authorship. PCmag’s posting on the Blog Phenomenon tells me it could be any of the following:
“Ego gratification. Some people need to be the center of attention. It makes them feel good about themselves to tell the world what important things they’ve been doing and what profound thoughts they’ve been having. Curiously, while this looks like the most obvious reason for a Web log, I think it’s probably the least likely reason, since it’s too trite and shallow.
Antidepersonalization. When people begin to think that they are nothing more than a cog in the wheel of society, they look for any way to differentiate themselves. The Web log proves they are different. Just read it. You’ll see.
Elimination of frustration. Day-to-day life, especially in the city, is wrought with frustration, and the Web log gives people the ability to complain to the world. You get to read a lot of complaining in these logs. If you think I’m a complainer, oh boy!
Societal need to share. As a cynic who gets paid to write, I have a hard time with this explanation. But it seems some people genuinely like to “share,” and this is one way.
Wanna-be writers. A lot of people want to be published writers. Blogs make it happen without the hassle of getting someone else to do it or having to write well—although there is good writing to be found. Some is shockingly good. Most of it is miserable. I expect to see those Open Learning classes around the country offering courses in Blog writing.
Whatever the reason for the Blog phenomenon, it’s not going to go away anytime soon. The main positive change: far fewer cat pictures!”
Still, I’d like to think my own purposes for writing a blog are purely creative and altruistic…
There also seems to be a real and present fear that the current generation is slowly losing their writing skills like a set of vestigial embryonic gills (I know I am!). But according to more recent piece in WIRED (so, if I do happen to actually have any regular readers, they will notice I’m a big fan of the magazine and get alot of news/features pertinent to my own interests from this source), it’s a bit more complex than this. While I can’t find the link to the original article, the general gist is this. Supposedly the youngsters in college are starting to litter their semester’s term papers with text message abbreviations. BTW, WTF , LOL, and the like strewn in with the bits and pieces of legitimate writing. The art of persuasive writing is really lost… But perhaps, it’s just a different culture of writing rising from the ruins. Teenagers are writing more than their older counterparts. Twitter, blogs, text messages – There are more avenues to express themselves and more need to than ever before in our history. And there may be more of an audience for it. We’re globally connected through our travel, our media, and now essentially our thoughts. So it may not mean the current crop of writers are terrible, perhaps just different (Well, it is true, sometimes bad is just bad.)
Oh and for sake of experiment, we’ll see if a strange title and aptly chosen tags improves my readership. TTFN (Ta Ta For Now) and Happy Blogging!
A Bit of Stardust 