Beware of the Blob--I mean Blog!

This week I want to blog about blogging. I am new to blogging, and trying to get all my thoughts and details organized is like wrestling a blob. Just when I think I know where my writing is going, it changes into The Blob! Blogging is not new; it has been around since the 1990's--according to New York Magazine the first blog was created in 1994 by Justin Hall, a Swarthmore student. I had thought blogging was a more recent invention! By 1997, Jorn Barger used the work Weblog for logging the Web, but Blog became the word of choice in 1999. In late 1999 Blogger becomes the first popular free blog site. Soon, blogs become one of the most popular forms of self expression on the internet. New York Magazine also included one of the first people, but certainly not the last, fired for something she discussed in her blog--Heather Armstrong has this distinction. Her website is called Dooce and is still up and running. Digressing here (but I think it is important!), last week I wrote about Shae Allen's termination because of what she wrote in her blog. It's interesting to note that Armstrong, on her About page, addresses her experience:  "My advice to you is BE YE NOT SO STUPID." Armstrong goes on to advise that writing about work in a blog should never be attempted unless supervisors and bosses know and give their blessings. No one is as wise as those who have learned from experience!            

Blogging continues to be a popular pastime and career. Yes, there are those out there who blog for a living. Armstrong's inclusion of ads on her blog was so successful her husband was able to quit his job and manage the blog business.  Google's AdSense began in 2003 and still runs strong. Blogging continued to grow in popularity, and in 2004 Merriam-Webster's "Word of the Year" was blog. The Huffington Post launched in 2005 as a community of blogs; thousands of unpaid bloggers contributed material. Blogging.org reports that in 2012 the U.S. has at least 42 million blogs, and more than 300 million people read or watch a blog monthly. Eighty-one percent of bloggers will never make $100 from their blogs, but 8% will earn enough to support their family, and 2% will make $150,000 while blogging one to two hours daily. Wouldn't we all like to be in that 2%?

Why do people blog? I'm sure the reasons can be as different as the people who blog, but common sense tells us that people blog because they want to express their opinions or share their knowledge or experiences on a particular topic. Many want a public platform to display their political views or their stance on important topics. Ali Luke tells his readers that bloggers typically fall into seven types:  niche expert, business owner, professional blogger, journal writer, platform-builder, product promoter, and freelancer. I follow several blogs. One Good Thing by Jillee is a good example of a blog that crosses the gamut of Luke's seven types. Jill is a business owner, she is a professional blogger, and she fits into the niche type as her blogs are generally how-to advice. Following her blogs has taught me lots about household tips, but she also talks about going to blogging conventions. She spotlights other bloggers in her blog. One Good Thing by Jillee led me to BlogHer, a platform for many bloggers to share their ideas. BlogHer is an amazing site with blogs for women by women (yes, a few men too!) and they pay for content. For the business owner, blogging is perfect for getting your message to customers and potential customer and for promoting your product. With the ability for readers to share blogs they like, blogging is an easy method to spread the word about you and your business. The journal writers are those bloggers who write in a narrative, often about personal experiences and daily life.Leanne Shirtliffe ~ Ironic Mom's blog fits this category. Her motto is If you can't laugh at yourself, laugh at your kids; all of us who are parents can certainly appreciate finding humor in the daily grind of life. Read her blog Children, Swearing, and the Middle Finger for a good laugh.

Mena Trott and her husband founded Six Apart, a company whose products have enabled people to become online publishers--in other words, bloggers. In her Ted Talk shared here, she discusses writing a personal blog, detailing the ups and downs of every day life. She makes an important point that personal blogs are a record of who we are. As I listened to her, I thought about future archeologists digging and researching into the 21st century. They may find computer fragments and remnants of our trash, but they may also find these written records that show how we lived, how we loved, and how we met our experiences with life and death. Just as we read letters from Civil War soldiers or maybe letters from our grandmother to our grandfather, someday others will read our blogs and know that the human experience is shared--even through the centuries.

I have included statistics and hot links in this blog--not just to show I know how to research but to show you where the research came from. As bloggers we have a responsibility to give quality content. We want to trust the blogs we read; we want to trust that these writers know what they are talking about. If I'm writing about a personal event, I might exaggerate some things (which is OK as it is my story), but if I am giving advice about the stock market, you want to know that I am knowledgeable about financial matters. This leads me to another important point about writing for an audience--we must spell correctly and write grammatically correct sentences. If we are writing in dialect or for effect, that's great, but if our readers see mistake after mistake, our credibility slides and so does our number of readers. I know I sound like an old lady English teacher (that is my background), but we are often judged by how we express ourselves--whether spoken or written.

If you decide to write a blog, don't let the white page scare you. You have to start somewhere, and the best bloggers are those who are passionate about their topics. Share with friends and family or let them "discover" you on their own. Realize that everyone who reads your blog will not agree with you. A local newspaper reporter told me that people won't agree with everything we write, but the fact that they replied or commented means they read our work and cared enough to respond. Disagreement may lead to conversation. So tackle your blob, I mean blog, and see what happens!