Earlier in the month we had an ‘open mike’ discussion on the top of What’s Wrong with Blogging? which brought up some interesting things about blogging that perhaps we don’t talk about too much.
At the time I’d planned on a second post on the topic of ‘What’s Right with Blogging?’ – but in the business of my life at that time I got a little distracted.
But it’s never too late so I thought it’d be a fun discussion to have now.
What do you like about blogging? What makes it something that you invest time into to? What makes it better than other types of websites?
Only positive comments about blogging will be allowed here – if you’ve got something to moan about with regards to blogging you’re welcome to share them here.
What’s right with Blogging is that for the most part, its wide open. Its constantly growing and innovating. Every day, there’s a new tip, a new idea, a new thing to help make blogging better.
Blogging, unlike other mediums is open to explosive growth. (I’ve doubled my readership in the last few months.) It allows people not only to publish their own stuff but to publish it effectively.
It gives a voice to the little guy.
There are lots of benefits to blogging, but the benefit I personally treasure most is the opportunity to do some real good… to genuinely help people. Blogging technology makes it easy and cheap for a single individual to provide value to thousands — even millions — of people around the world. That value could be information, entertainment, or inspiration.
I find that the more I focus on the giving aspects of blogging, the more I enjoy the process, and the more I receive in return. When I get too caught up in the ego-driven aspects, I experience a feeling of contraction. I believe that focusing on providing value first and foremost is what ultimately produces all the other wonderful side effects.
For example, my wife and I were quoted in a feature article on the front page of today’s (Feb 27) issue of USA Today, and the reporter contacted us because of my blog — really because of the free information I posted that the reporter could access with no barriers. This means being able to share my ideas with even more people, thus hopefully doing even more good. I posted the details here:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/02/polyphasic-sleep-in-usa-today/
Because of the ability to share value with so many people in such an easy manner, the question I have to ask intelligent and knowledgeable non-bloggers is, “Why are you being so selfish with your content?”
The thing I like most about blogging is the ability to interact with like-minded people through my blog. One gets to know a lot of people and what they think about your blog. It’s a great long term learning process. Besides, every once in a while when your work gets appreciated, it’s a great feeling !!
big4guy
As a reader of loads of design blogs, what I love about them is their freshness. Often I can read about new logs, furniture, or other designed stuff waaay before I can in a design magazine or journal. I also love the comments function. The last word is not with the blogger, but the audience, which helps to give balance.
As a blogger, I agree with Loran above that blogs give a voice to the ‘little guy’ (or gal in my case!).
Oops, meant logos not logs. In case you were wondering…
Blogging is great because mimeographing is messy and xeroxing costs too much.
Plus, I can do things like post comment #16 (“TuffPosh”) on this post written by U.S. Senator Harry Reid. I’ve also left comments on threads by Nancy Pelosi, Rob Reiner, Al Franken, and Alex Baldwin at the same site. Which, when you think about it, is pretty “trippy” as they used to say.
Plus, I can get top rankings for various long-long-tail political and media names. Those who are searching for more information on, say, a specific reporter might see one of my results and find out “mistakes” that reporter has made in his or her reports.
The good thing about blogging is that you need not write all the content before you make it public. So everyday you can think a nice idea and write with full enthusiasm. On the other hand, if you are making a site, you have to finish all of your content before you make it public. otherthing is that, because you are putting some content on a daily basis, you can get a lot of repeat visitor which is very in the case of a website
I can write what I think and feel about particular subjects and share it with everyone. Even though I realise that some people may not share the same PoV it is still a good feeling and it’s even better when someone comes along and says “hey, you really are a good writer”. Mind you, that doesn’t happen often enough ;)
I’ve done web design and development for years and while it’s easy to post a new page on a website with Dreamweaver, you still have to go back and add navigation on another page, then connect up and upload everything. If you are manually doing RSS feeds you need to go in and update that and upload it as well before the job is done.
With blogging though I can jot down a thought in a couple of minutes. It could be a long piece or just a few lines highlighting something I’ve seen. Push a button and it’s live, complete with header tags navigation, links, RSS and auto-archiving.
Blogging is great.
My primary focus in blogging is marriage education. Interaction is important to education: Asking provoking questions, stimulating conversation, pointing to new ideas, eliciting responses. A blog is usually interactive, so a blog is better than a static website for education. And it’s hugely more efficient in dollars and time than setting up a “personalized” traditional dynamic website or forum that would allow for interaction.
A blog allows me to learn and write about something on an ongoing basis, without needing to be an expert on all of it right now. A static website feels like it needs to have its content “done” before being presented.
A blog’s structure is often more flexible than a traditional static website, which tend toward elaborate information hierarchies.
wordpress
the elimination of the need of having a company “webmaster” or “geek” to keep your site online
Blogging is a revolutionary, disruptive technology. In what other format can you publish your ideas to an audience of over a billion people for the price of an Internet connection? You can get immediate updates on late breaking stories. You can create and receive content at the same time. This will affect all publishing media profoundly.
I’d agree with Loren, it’s about giving the little guy a boost to his voice. Everyone has a story or expertise and through blogging you can get a sneak peak into their skills or life in an easy and interactive way.
What I like is that everybody has a chance to prove themselves within their topic.
Everyone has the chance to build up their own reputation.