To blog or not to blog, that is the question...

I’M beginning to wonder what this whole business of blogging is all really about and, more to the point, what I personally am doing it for. And whether - and this is the bottom line - anyone is actually reading my blog. And if not, if my blog is in fact my best kept secret, is it any better than the paper diary I used to keep many years back, which if I were to have left lying about the house would probably have been read by more people than my blog, which is supposed to be an online diary or journal open to thousands and thousands of potential readers, or at least that is the theory of it. The reality is often very different, it would seem.

IT'S difficult to understand how some blogs have hundreds if not thousands of so-called followers and others, like mine, just a pitiful handful; how some blogs receive a whole series of comments on each post and others, like mine again, seem to pass unnoticed and unremarked like a sigh in the desert. What makes some blogs so popular, so read, so commented on, while others languish in a sort of limbo-land of neglect and abandonment apparently unseen, unread and unremarked? It’s perhaps not as obvious a question as you might think.

I have recently looked into this matter myself, not in any extensive or systematic way, just by way of curiosity in an attempt to understand what makes a blog popular, and quite frankly it has left me more confused than ever. There are some blogs that are so shallow and insubstantial or that deal with the everyday trivialities of a person’s life, or recount a catalogue of numbing sexual conquests and alcoholic excesses and yet have a following of several hundreds or in excess of a thousand. And there are other blogs which are full of useful information, thought-provoking content, well-argued opinions, interesting images, and yet appear to languish in crushing obscurity, with few if any followers and with hardly a comment on any of the posts.

SO what’s going on? Is it to do with the blogger’s social background, networking activities,  number of contacts in general? Does his blog have a large number of followers because many of them are friends, work colleagues, relatives, business contacts, friends of friends and friends of colleagues and all the rest of it? This might explain the exponential growth of followers, a sort of mouth-to-mouth referral of the blog and a consequent accretion of more and more followers joining on recommendation. Once a blog has attracted a goodly number of followers, there seems to be a kind of snowball effect which attracts more and more like bees to honey, as new visitors assume that since the blog already has so many acolytes it must be exceptional and therefore worth following. One might compare it to a brawl in the street. A few people gather round to see what all the commotion is about and before you know it there’s a whole crowd of bystanders witnessing the event. An initial interest, generated in some manner or other, builds up momentum which leads to more and more interest.

WHATEVER the process at work, which favours some blogs and not others, and which seems to have bypassed my blog, the quality of the writing or even the content of the blog, does not really seem to be a factor, as I’ve already said. You can see the untidiest and scruffiest of blogs, full of random jottings and confusing gadgets and widgets and the like, with nothing really of any substance to say, and it may have a following of hundreds or more. Whether of course all these followers are actually reading it would be open to question as some people, especially youngsters with a strong herd instinct, will join just about anything that’s going!

NOW you may think this is all sour grapes on my part, and you would probably be right! It certainly begs the question why I write a blog and I have to admit that the answer that comes back is not a straightforward one. I certainly get pleasure out of the actual act of writing, putting my thoughts down “on paper”, as it were, creating something and illustrating it with suitable images, but if I am true to myself my answer would also include the fact that I like the thought of other people reading my blog, having access to my thoughts and opinions, perhaps going to the trouble to comment on my views and even express some appreciation of my writings.

HAVING said that, it brings me full circle to the way I began this post. If no-one, or as good as no-one, is reading my blog, why should I bother at all? After all, it’s been years since I gave up keeping a private journal, as I wearied of just doing something which did not involve anyone else and which only I knew about (at least while i was still alive!). A lot of bloggers, if they are honest about it, would not be writing anything at all or at least would not be keeping any sort of regular journal were it not for the opportunity that online blogging affords them of being read by others, receiving feedback and perhaps being appreciated from time to time.

WELL, folks, there you have it. I’ve said what I had to say about that and I don’t suppose I will hear anything from anyone about it or that anyone will even get to read it. Obviously, there are bloggers out there outclassing me hands down and soaking up all the followers, and my humble blogging efforts are as nothing compared to their apocalyptic outpourings. Bitter? You bet I am! However, be that as it may and notwithstanding my disappointment to-date, I will soldier on in the steadfast belief that I may yet be read by someone out there in cyberspace or, more accurately, the blogosphere, and even build up a decent following before I end up doing as I did with my paper diary and throwing in the towel once and for all! It all depends on you, my fellow bloggers, out there. Are you going to let me languish in limbo or are you going to give me the fillip I need to keep this blog up till I finally take my leave of this world? My fate is in your hands, cybernauts!