Why bloggers blog

Several people have been talking about why they blog and what they need to reveal or hide. Both Joi and Casey have been discussing it.
After a bit of thought, blogging is really about one thing and one thing only. Getting recognition. To those of us down with Transactional Analysis, it’s all about the warm fuzzies.
People crave attention and praise more than anything else in life. More than money or possessions.
Bloggers love comments. Bloggers love getting side emails. Bloggers love Trackbacks and links to their weblogs.
Sure, there are some people (like me) that have the secondary goal of spreading some information or knowledge around, but the primary goal remains getting attention.
Let’s be honest here folks. Bloggers will change their weblog in the direction that gets them more eyeballs, clicks, links, and comments.
The difficulty is riding the line between what people want to know and what will cause you more trouble in life.
Feel free to disagree, I love the comments. 🙂

Author

8 thoughts on “Why bloggers blog”

  1. I have discontinued my blog as I identified its purpose (I was trying to communicate with one person) and no longer have the need. This was my third or fourth attempt, so I do not expect to come back to blogging. You are correct that it is an exercise in generating recognition, but it is not the kind of recognition I seek, if I seek any.
    You should remove the link as the page is no longer live.
    casey

  2. LOVE this entry. And all the links. Really neat!
    I think that people blog for a variety of reasons. Sometimes we are just talking to ourselves. Sometimes merely processing ideas. Wanting to communicate ideas that others in one’s small circle may not care about. And, sometimes just saying I’m here and this is what I care about.

  3. I like this post also, because I was just discussing this concept, idea and the why’s with someone. Right now my beliefs(as they are educated) tend to see about 90% of bloggers out there for recognition, the others are posting for reasons of their own, there may be more, but finding those blog sites is a hard thing to do. So far the only commonality amoung good blog sites is that they all have dedicated bloggers behind them.

  4. I did not start the blog for recognition, just my own amusement. I do, however, really appreciate and enjoy comments and miss them when they aren’t there. I know I’ve blogged at times when I haven’t felt like it as much, just so I don’t lose my readers…though I don’t feel as obsessed about that anymore. I am really pleased that I’ve met quite a few neat people via the ‘net, and now I keep up the blog for that reason. There are some fantastic people out there.

  5. I agree, totally. Sure it’s fun, but it’s a natural thing for all humans to want recognition.
    It’s not really something I thought about until I read this entry, though. Blogging is fun. It’s nice to be able to sit back and say “hey, I made a webpage. Let’s update it.” But eyeballs are always nice to get.
    Here, have a ping.
    *ping*

  6. Why blog?

    Why do people blog? Really, why do they? I found an interesting take on that here. Now that I think about it, yeah, it is nice to get some eyeballs on a webpage now and then. Is that my primary reason for blogging? No, not really. I really don’t know…

  7. You are exactly right, and beyond the attention seeking, it is a completely narcissistic activity. And I am ok with that.
    I do have one other reason why I do it. As an Artist and web developer, I look at it as a sandbox to play around, expiriment and learn new technology. A place to force me to be more creative. That being said, why do i think a public forum will encourage me to experiment? Well, I guess it goes back to attention seeking and narcisism.

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