Why do people blog?

Wed, May 11 2005, 10:30 am

Blogging – the latest ‘in’ thing on the hobby list. And no one wants to be left behind. At the first mention of the term one goes and signs up with one of the numerous blog sites available online.

Hours are spent pondering over a nice name, choosing a template (my blog should look the best!), adding links to ‘Sites I Visit’, ‘Blogs, Books I read’, ‘Songs I listen’ etc etc. The list is endless. The time spent, almost seems infinite!

No I am no blogging critic. In fact I am no exception to what I just described above. But unlike others once the initial enthusiasm faded out, updating my blog seemed more like a task than a hobby, for reasons I will shortly enumerate.

Many of my friends, more commonly girls, have always maintained personal diaries, their companion, the one thing which knows all those dark secrets about their life. I thought at one point even I should have one. But then I always preferred my memory to remember those parts of my life than a book which would mean an additional responsibility of protecting it. That’s it. My diary stopped at the first page itself. And it never went beyond.

Then came blogging. Once again just to be a part of the ever increasing ‘gang’ of bloggers, I signed up. But this only filled my mind with more questions.

There are billions of bloggers around the world. Why would anyone read my blog? Or rather how many blogs of people I don’t know have I read?

Then why does one blog? What would you want to post on your blog that you want to share with the entire world out there? Would you want to share your personal life and happenings with the rest of the globe?

Have got different answers for this too!

No blog I have seen till date relates to one’s personal life. So I guess that is where personal diairies and blogs are fundamentally different. Following are the different kinds of bloggers I have met - online.

Those who blog to share their opinions and thoughts about various issues, social, political whatever! Maybe they hope that someday someone with the same views would read their blog and then they could have an online community!!!!!

Some blog to portray an image of themselves which they want that special someone to see. And yes, that someone special is the most common visitor to the blog! No it need not be a wrong image. Just a facet of their personality which cannot be directly gotten across but only through this medium of indirect words, supposedly targeted at the entire world!

Then there are those who write a looooooong blog when they have nothing better to do. They want to relate their everyday experiences on their blog. What they eat, where they went etc etc. Stuff which no stranger will ever be interested in. But stuff which might make interesting reading for their friends and acquaintances. I guess they see their blog as a ‘mass mailer’, a convenient way of keeping in touch! I belong here.

Welcome to my blog!

-S