The simple fact that you’re reading this entry means that you have some cursory interest in the world of blogging. You may not be an active participant by way of one of your own, or by leaving comments, but by taking the time to read an entry or two from this one or one of the roughly 7.1 million other blogs out there in the wired (and unwired) universe means that you are part of the blog culture.
The Tyee has a fascinating little look at what makes bloggers tick, my favourite line from the piece is “how a hobby becomes an addiction “A quote which probably rings true for many a blogger.
It’s been almost three years since the term Blogger became the word of the year, since then it’s estimated that something like 175,000 blogs are created each day. Some provided their authors with awards and riches (your humble servant is not among that select group we regret, especially the riches part); others just become an archive of thoughts on a day to day basis, a touchstone for the important items that they come across on a daily basis.
Many become slaves to their blogs, burning out and leaving the process bitter and weary of the snide remarks of those that troll their blogs looking to pick fights. Perhaps it’s a sign that they might be taking their efforts just a little too seriously. This blog has received the odd blast of outrage from one or another of the occasional passers by, sometimes the comments make sense, most times they appear to be the ramblings of the residents of planet Zantar, for the most part they are part and parcel of the blog experience. For whatever reason, the comments that are e mailed to my podunkcan mail drop are at times nastier than the ones posted on the blog, But then again it’s so much easier to just delete the ones on the mail server, so keep the venom coming if nothing else it’s entertaining.
That being said, the few readers of this blog on a daily basis, don’t compare to the thousands of hits per day that the big league hitters of the blogosphere receive, perhaps if I had to wade through two or three hundred comments a day and purge the uglier side of humanity I too would understand the weariness of the fight.
The best observation for the purpose of the blogs, comes from Matthew Good the long time Canadian musician and a well known Vancouver blogger, his raison d’etre for blogging is to encourage debate on the issues he finds of interest. This, for the most part is the reason most folks seem to blog, a chance to provide talking points for the audience and let them weigh in with an opinion if they wish.
In the end, a good many of the folks that started those 7.1 million blogs and counting, will abandon the project or scale back their efforts. Some suffer from burnout, others just get frustrated at the occassional glitches in the blogosphere that send their well thought out contributions to some kind of holding pen in the sky, never to be seen again.
The Tyee has a fascinating little look at what makes bloggers tick, my favourite line from the piece is “how a hobby becomes an addiction “A quote which probably rings true for many a blogger.
It’s been almost three years since the term Blogger became the word of the year, since then it’s estimated that something like 175,000 blogs are created each day. Some provided their authors with awards and riches (your humble servant is not among that select group we regret, especially the riches part); others just become an archive of thoughts on a day to day basis, a touchstone for the important items that they come across on a daily basis.
Many become slaves to their blogs, burning out and leaving the process bitter and weary of the snide remarks of those that troll their blogs looking to pick fights. Perhaps it’s a sign that they might be taking their efforts just a little too seriously. This blog has received the odd blast of outrage from one or another of the occasional passers by, sometimes the comments make sense, most times they appear to be the ramblings of the residents of planet Zantar, for the most part they are part and parcel of the blog experience. For whatever reason, the comments that are e mailed to my podunkcan mail drop are at times nastier than the ones posted on the blog, But then again it’s so much easier to just delete the ones on the mail server, so keep the venom coming if nothing else it’s entertaining.
That being said, the few readers of this blog on a daily basis, don’t compare to the thousands of hits per day that the big league hitters of the blogosphere receive, perhaps if I had to wade through two or three hundred comments a day and purge the uglier side of humanity I too would understand the weariness of the fight.
The best observation for the purpose of the blogs, comes from Matthew Good the long time Canadian musician and a well known Vancouver blogger, his raison d’etre for blogging is to encourage debate on the issues he finds of interest. This, for the most part is the reason most folks seem to blog, a chance to provide talking points for the audience and let them weigh in with an opinion if they wish.
In the end, a good many of the folks that started those 7.1 million blogs and counting, will abandon the project or scale back their efforts. Some suffer from burnout, others just get frustrated at the occassional glitches in the blogosphere that send their well thought out contributions to some kind of holding pen in the sky, never to be seen again.
The Tyee does a good job of explaining why they began and what eventually sends them away from the hobby that became an addiction.
No comments:
Post a Comment