01.02Blogging Less
The other day, Gene asked for thoughts on why we’ve seen a decrease in blog activity over the past year. I’ve been thinking a lot about this as it applies to A Case Of The Mundys, so I thought I’d share my thoughts here:
Blogging well requires relationship. It requires regular attention not only to your blog, but to the blogs of your readers, and your potential readers. For me, I know that this attention would be better spent on the family and friends who are physically near me. I have a hard enough time being a good friend. I’ve tried to spend 2009 building less into web relationship and more into the people I actually spend time with. The caveat, of course, is that some of the people I spend time with are friends that I made through blogging or Twitter. I don’t discount the friends I’ve made in the blogging community, I simply feel a greater responsibility to those who are with me each day.
Blogging well requires time. When I first started blogging I worked for a company with a pretty lax internet policy and lots of down time. Finding interesting YouTube videos and writing witty bits of sarcasm could take up a couple of hours and it was no big deal. Things aren’t like that anymore. I’m working two busy jobs and when I come home I should probably spend time talking to my wife rather than typing on a laptop.
Blogging well requires content. Average Joe (aka, me) doesn’t really have much to say. Truth is, there is only a small circle of people who would care to read a long discourse on the role of worship in the Exodus (yeah, that’s a two-month old draft) and everything else I write about (food, my dog, snarky comments) fits perfectly into 140 characters on Twitter and Facebook. Without meaningful content, blogging is somewhat… meaningless.
What that means for blogging in 2010. I’m not putting down blogging as a medium. I still think it’s great. I still read lots of ‘em. I’m still going to write on this one. I just think it’s changing. The blogs that are holding on and thriving are those that have a purpose. Generally, that purpose is to promote something– a person, an idea, an album, something. The time and energy that goes into a good blog needs to have a payoff beyond, “oh! I had 31 views today!” It needs to translate into mp3s sold, ideas accepted, seats filled, or some other goal.
That’s my opinion. Thoughts?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot too. I think, for me anyway, blogging has become a lot more work and so I will have long stretches where I don’t blog. I think trying to find meaningful content or attract people to the blog is too time-consuming and makes it less enjoyable. I have, as of late stopped caring so much about that stuff and tried to write about stuff as it comes, which makes my blog more personal and, therefore, perhaps less likely to attract people. I suppose you just have to be ok with that.
I miss you too brotha! We need to hang out like yesterday!
January 6th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
For me… I started blogging a lot less (and it started to feel like more of a chore) once I joined Facebook. I’m connected to most of the same people and more, there.
January 13th, 2010 at 3:03 pm