Why Do You Blog?

I'm taking a survey and I'll post the results early this week at IT Kitchen.  Feel free to send a note telling me why you blog to "fpaynter AT sandhilltech.com." if you MUST remain anonymous, tell me... otherwise your name will be included in the reponses I collate.  Thanks! 

Comments

[Stu Savory]

Hi Frank,
Dilbert took part in your survey today already, see

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20041122.html

Stu

[fp]

So it's sort of like mountain climbing is it Stu?

[Seth Finkelstein]

Short Answer: "To be heard"

In my view, there are three regimes, roughly:

One, few, many.

"One" == Diaries. Some people keep their diary on-line, and don't mind if others read it.

"Few" == Socializing, chatting. The intended audience is close friends, and events only of interest to that circle.

"Many" == Punditry. The goal is to reach as many people as possible with your ideas.

These categories aren't strict walls, but are general aims.

Some blog evangelists are (local) celebrites who find that a huge number of people are interested in the evangelist's diary and chat, so the evangelist gets the silly idea that diary and chat will revolutize society ("Emergent Blatherocracy"). The evangelist then has an annoying tendency to tell the unsuccessful pundits to be happy to write diary and chat.

The lovers of diary and chat think the wannabe pundits are ruining the neighborhood, commercializing the pure art.

It's all as varied as any other writing and art/commerce differences.

[Anne]

Herman Melville put it best when he said, "We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results." A perfect desciption of blogging, don't you think?

I started blogging some years ago largely to pass time and share experiences. A small part of me, however, was selfishly hoping for admiration and affirmation; a shallow attitude i've long abandoned. Eventually, i discovered the joy found via "invisible threads" and "sympathetic fibers" - those human connections made along the way. Blogger tend to be a lovely comfort of strangers.

[Mike Golby]

You told me to.

"Do you blog?" were, I believe, your exact words.

I used to have a life before meeting you, Paynter. Now I have a bloody blog (well, okay, the blood's courtesy George W. Bush).

As for the blog, I don't know how to thank you :).

[SB]

Mine is here: http://itkitchen.info/2004/11/13/why-i-blog/