Barren Blogs
On Monday, the NYTimes published a piece about blogs that have been abandoned. Here’s a snippet:
According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.
Blogs are easy to start and easier to quit. When I first launched LetterLover I did so under the assumption that It’s on the Web and now lots of people will see it! But the Internet, like so many things, is an illusion, and often times you have to work for your visitors. An article on DailyCandy.com gave me thousands of visitors in one day. Regretfully, I did not have a blog at the time and, therefore, the readers didn’t have any reason to come back to the Web site (unless, of course, they needed a letter).
I’m pretty much the opposite of the bloggers profiled in this piece. I added a blog to my Web site when I redesigned it in early 2007 to coincide with my book release, but I blogged rarely and reluctantly. Then . . . time went on and I found I really enjoy the art of random expression for a small (wonderful!) audience.
I was, admittedly, a little self-righteous while reading the article. I was thinking to myself What wimpy blogger isn’t okay with putting him or herself out there?! Then I reminded myself that I don’t have an audience of 50,000. If I did AND if I knew my friends were reading daily (none of them are which is fine, I don’t ask them to) then blogging might be a whole different ballgame. As for now, I’m free to be me (and oh so grateful!)
For fun: Here’s Jezebel making fun of that very same article.
It’s always good to have two points of view!
June 11th, 2009 at 4:37 am
What a weird article. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that NYTimes and I don’t have the same points of view at all. The writer only goes from the perspective of “having an audience” or “making money” from a blog, and because people don’t get that, they stop blogging.
But what if you just want to write and share things, and that’s why you blog? You’re less likely to give it up that way, and less likely to be disappointed when you don’t get attention.
June 11th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Excellent point Stephanie. I hadn’t read the article that way. Although it is quite glaring now that you mention it. You should write for Gawker/Jezebel =) And I agree, if you get some personal satisfaction out of blogging then you’re less likely to give it up. I will, no doubt, print my blog and have it stand as an extension of my journal someday—regardless of whether it made me money or had millions of readers.
And then there’s this part (our conversation) that is one great bonus of blogging!
December 18th, 2009 at 6:20 am
great post. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did you guys know that some Iranian hacker had hacked twitter yesterday.