Hot Congas

Thoughts on why people blog (revisited)

I originally published this on 11/20/2004 on a now defunct blog. Back then, blogging was really starting to take off. I tried to figure out what it was about blogs and blogging that led to the increase in popularity, and listed some possible reasons. This is a somewhat modified version of the original post.

Blogs are (or can be):

Personal:
Many blogs are, in essence, intensely personal. People seem to show a lot of their personalities through their blogs. For example, they tend to write about what they’re interested in, their views, their values, their hopes, aspirations, dreams, fears, experiences, etc.

Expressive:
I see this as a major reason why blogging is so popular nowadays. With blogging, people get the chance to express themselves, usually through writing, but sometimes through other means as well, including photos, graphics, drawings, cartoons, sounds, etc. It seems that the main driving force behind this aspect of blogging is people have a chance to be heard—to have others read their words and view their sites and perhaps respond via comments.

Social:
Bloggers, it would seem, tend to gravitate towards blogs that interest them, or, perhaps, blogs that push them to think about things in new and different ways. Blogging is, in a way, a very social activity with a lot of give and take between participants. This adds to an overall sense of community amongst bloggers.

Immediate and fresh:
With the rise in popularity of RSS, various social bookmarking services, etc., updates to blogs can be propagated around the Internet in seconds. People can subscribe to the RSS feeds of blogs they are interested in. The immediacy of blogging has some drawbacks, however. If a person doesn’t update their site on a somewhat regular basis, readers might find their site to be “stale” and might stop visiting. So, most people seem to make the effort to update their sites periodically, sometimes every day. Content that is updated frequently tends to draw people back for more.

Viral:
If someone leaves a comment, along with their e-mail address and the URL for their own blog on another person’s blog, someone else might come by and read the submitter’s comment and visit their site. This process where people leave little traces of the existence of their blog all over the place makes the whole process of blogging very viral in nature. I suspect that this is one of the main ways that blogs spread around the Internet.

Simple:
In my experience at least, putting together a basic blog is not very difficult, especially with tools that are available from services such as blogger.

Expandable/Extensible:
There are powerful free and commercial blog management and publishing tools available for those who want to produce a blog that goes beyond the basics. Some of these tools are very flexible and feature-rich, including my favorite, ExpressionEngine, which is used to run this site.

Focused:
Many, though certainly not all, blogs are focused in that they tend to have a general theme. For example, some blogs are focused on knitting; some on being a mom or a dad; some on politics; some on personal experiences; some on sports; some on marketing, etc. The fact that most blogs tend to have at least a general theme means people can seek out blogs that interest them and save those blogs in some way in a list of favorites.

Diverse:
There’s an incredible variety of blogs available, which makes the whole process of discovering new and interesting blogs an adventure in and of itself.

Inexpensive:
There are several free blogging services out there, including blogger. One can get started with blogging for very little cost.

Content Rich:
I think that blogs, by their very nature, tend to encourage people to create content that encourages people to visit regularly. Providing content that others want to see, especially if it is updated regularly, is what keeps people coming back again and again for more.