Blogs Are 10
Apparently it’s ten years since the word “weblog” was coined. It was as this sort of time in 1997 that people actually started to maintain online diaries (even if at the time they were frequently just lists of other interesting sites). It then took another two years for “we” to be dropped from the front, leaving the now accepted term “blog”.
Again using the BBC as my trusty source, it appears that:
the size of the blogosphere in late 1998 encompassed only 23 sitesBBC News
Indeed, sometimes it feels as though the number has only increased about four-fold in terms of blogs containing any original content since then, such is the prevalence of splogs that I come across.
Obviously, that’s somewhat of an exaggeration, but I don’t know in real life anyone else who is a blogger that I didn’t know first from their online identity. There’s a lot more of us out there, but we’re still the minority.
Blogging regularly is difficult: I try to blog daily but every now and again I feel “burnt out” and simply run out of things to talk about, whereupon I give it a week or so to recharge my batteries until I’m full of piss and vinegar again and ready to re-engage rant mode. But therein lies the problem. A lot of people start out thinking “I’ve got something to say”, and then realise after a couple of posts that maybe they haven’t…
It’s like the old line about everyone “having a book in them”. Well, maybe, but unless you’re actually capable of writing — and writing regularly, you’re never going to get it out of you, are you?
I’ve set up blogs for half a dozen people I know, none of whom have lasted beyond three posts. It’s one of those things that people think “sounds like a good idea” — and it is — but you simply must blog regularly. If you blog regularly, people will check your site regularly and come back. If you don’t, they won’t.
I’d suggest any blog will start to lose readers if it isn’t updated at least twice a week. That’s one of those “off the top of my head” things so I have no stats whatsoever to back it up, and I might be wrong. But if you do take a long break, you might come back to find people have stopped checking because they’ve assumed you’ve stopped.
It doesn’t matter so much what you have to say: it’s more about how you say it. If you’re using a blog which will allow you to categorise posts then your readers will know to ignore the ones about the Playstation3 if that doesn’t interest them, or maybe ignore the ones about which of Reading’s Reserve games you’ve seen this season — but if you develop a writing style that your readers enjoy, then they’ll read them anyway because it’s the way you tell ‘em that is important.
You can’t blog because you think you ought to blog. That just won’t work. But you can — and should blog if you find that you want to write regularly, then maybe you should give it a try. Just remember that whatever you say gets published in the public domain, so make sure you don’t say things that you don’t want to make public — or in other words be careful and make sure you don’t get dooced.
Hello. I am 
We have Jorn Barger to thanks. Thanks Jorn.
Guilty as charged but then sometimes life just gets in the way. Does 3 posts in two days make up for it?
I set up a blog for a friend who has plenty to say, although he never got past more than one post. Some people fancy blogging, but then don’t know what to do with it when they get it. He would have made a great blogger. Sigh.