What's the deal with blogging?

[Bobby_M]

The web is an amazing outlet for people to feel like they belong to some kind of social group when they are otherwise introverted to the point of handicap. I can appreciate that this is theraputic to a point. I don't know that anyone claims celebrity due to a blog being published, but I'd wonder how much traffic someone's blog has to acheive before the publisher inevitably feels a sense of accomplishment (celebrity). You could say the same thing about people who post things on this forum or youtube or whatever. I can't explain exactly why I do it. I guess I get off on putting out some information with the hopes that it benefits a few people (sure that's in the context of a hobby but for some blogs it might just be a hope of entertaining someone). I also make short updates to my personal website just for the benefit of family members who like to hear what I'm up to but I'd rather not call on a weekly basis.

 

[McKBrew]

Blogs are the 21st century equivalent of a diary or journal. I've tried to start a couple blogs for the selfish reason of getting people to read them so that I could make some money from google adsense. But my life is really boring, so no one looked at my blogs. I have made a total of about 11 cents since December.

 

[Soulive]

I think Ben is taking an (un)necessary flogging here. I think I understand what he is getting at. Having been around since before the boom of the web, or the web in general for that matter, I remember the BBS/Usenet days (the original message boards), before everyone had a web page. Generally then if you had a site or a BBS, to some extent, you were "important" in this "cyber" society, or at least had something remotely interesting to say. With everything as accessible as it is today, anyone can have their own web page, message board, yahoo store, blog, ebay listing, whatever, it has diluted what once was. Is it necessarily a bad thing? I'm not sure I care enough as Ben made his OP sound. Every now and then, I have those "well I was here before all of this ****" feeling, then I realize I have more important things to worry about...

Thanks Joe, I see what you're saying. I'm definitely not raising my blood pressure over it though. There are, as you say, more important things to worry about...