Why Blog? Zat Is Ze Qwestion
Ensight responds to the question of why we blog. For some it's to build relationship and get to know people. This is both for business networking and being a social butterfly. Some people think blogging is about talking to yourself. His answer is as follows:
I write for myself. The parts I love about blogging are the social aspect, the concept of opening up my ideas for review (by others or myself) as well as the ability to search my thoughts: knowledge management.
Blogging's something for anyone and everyone. I can't think of anyone who can't benefit from knowing more people, never forgetting a thought again and improving on their thoughts with little or no effort.
For some blogging will be like a diary: a historical record of their thoughts at a moment in time.
For others it'll be like speed-networking. You get to know people in a shallow way and then develop a relationship.
For still others it'll be something else entirely.
Most people who don't "get" blogging have never really tried to look past the teenage girls who "oooh, he's so cute" their way through every day.
Even for those girls, though, there's value. Psychologically speaking it's an incredibly valuable outlet.
Sorry, but many people are too busy being closed minded about blogging to see the potential. If you don't do it, cool. But don't say it's useless "unless you have a big fan group or like to hear your own voice" (to paraphrase).
He follows with:
But, really, blogging is about the blogger. I've introduced dozens of people to blogging. Only one quit, and I'm trying to convince him to take it up again because I honestly believe he'd really enjoy it.
All of the people who have taken it up generally aren't sure why they keep at it. I love blogging, I'm sure I'll always blog in some form or another (even if it dies, it's entirely likely I'll just do it for me as a journal).
I'm not sure why I blog. I like to keep a record of interesting sites. I like having somewhere where I can rant about cycling or gay issues. It's some sort of journal for me, where I also have an audience.
I've tried keeping a diary at different times in my life, but don't manage to keep up with it, and a dated diary becomes so wasteful. I tried keeping a journal when I did my OE but again that lasted only a few weeks; when I settled in a place I stopped writing.
I sometimes use MyDiary on my pda for the things that private; things that affected me strongly emotionally, that I need to write down but do not want to publish. Maybe one day I'll publish some of them, but as they refer to others it is not fair for me to identify them without permission.
