Comments on: why we blog

By: dilys

dilys — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:33:49 +0000

I think category 4, the audition model, is already expanding further into business and social life. My blog, though most certainly not read ab initio by potential clients, serves adequately as a talking business card for new acquaintances in either realm to encounter “the tenor of my mind.” Sometimes they find it interesting and return the greeting, as opposed to the retreating cloud of dust that would arise if I introduced myself at a party, “Hello, I’m an ageing over-educated Red State lifecoach interested in practical economics who is a catechumen in the Orthodox church and occasionally writes amusing verse and draws dinosaurs.” Yet its kernel is there for all to see at “Good&Happy.”

Being a “fellow blogger” also allows those so brashly inclined to introduce themselves to any interesting blogger, some of whom would be insulated and unapproachable through the ordinary channels. The object of my question/comment may or may not respond; but if the content is even arguably relevant to their blogging, it’s not a faux pas.

And yes, it’s effort- and time-consuming, the amount of effort varying with the depth of reflection and research involved. It’s a delicate balance, enough fact and accuracy and new information to interest a reader, but not overtaking the rest of life or reeking of obsession.

As a comment of this length probably does.

By: Grant

Grant — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 11:46:59 +0000

Matt, indeed, and I think that’s what Kevin Kelly is talking about. There are plenty of intrinsic reasons to blog and there had better be because for most of us this is going to be it in the way of compensation. And I am interested in the theme you raise: the blogger who lives under deep cover, freed to speak because of the anonymity supplied by the blog…the Marrano intellectual, as it were. That should go on the list of our accomplishments, too. Thanks, Grant

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 00:28:05 +0000

What about those of us for whom making money is not the point of blogging? (I have a _business_ for that…I don’t need a blog for it.)

I’m not in the blogosphere to make money from blogging, nor to promote myself or my company commercially. (Indeed, one would have to track down my history of comments on other people’s blogs in order to even piece together what profession I’m in…learning what my business does, without departing the blogosphere, would be impossible. Given what I blog about, and the topic areas of most of the blogs I comment on, it’s better that way.) I’m here because the blogosphere seems to be the only environment in the universe where people like me exist in sufficient density to support a decent amount of ongoing conversation.

It’s an advantage the internet has always had. Blogs just made it easier for casual linkages between communities to form, and thus for any given person to surf his way to more circles of companionship.