I remember when I started blogging, I promised myself that I would never write about “blogging.” Could there be a subject more boring? God help us when the first movie about bloggers comes out. The studios love to make movies about current trends (breakdancing movies, anyone?) Warner Bros., please don’t make a blogging movie with Reese Witherspoon as a young blogger who falls in love with blah blah blah!
Unfortunately for you, the more I blog, the more I’ve become interested in the actual subject matter of blogging.
So, here are three weekend blogging thoughts, sort of a sequel to my earlier post on blogging tools:
1)
What are these banner things? I’ve been blogging for more than a year, and I’m still not sure what most of these banners are for. Question for those who are involved in these groups:
“Does anyone actually come to your site from “Blog Universe” or “Blogtopsites?””
Blogarama? Blogwise? Bloggernity? Blogstreet? What the hell is all this crap? Frankly, I don’t trust any button that blinks on and off. And if you want more readers, isn’t it easier to just steal contacts from other blogrolls?
So, what’s the buzz, are any of these groups worth joining?
2)
Let’s talk about readership. Recently I got an email from a new blogger saying how lucky I was that I had all these readers. While I’m honored (I mean truly honored) to have people come to my site, I was just as happy when I had three readers. In fact, too many bloggers around makes me anxious. I’m trying to be creative. Who needs all these other “creative” people hanging around making me feel insecure?
My biggest problem is that I enjoy writing. That means I’m like a hermit. I’m not used to interacting with hot blogging babes all the way from Indonesia! There’s just too many cool bloggers out there to meet and talk with. It all begins to feels like a huge party where you’re supposed to circulate yourself from person to person, making chit-chat. I’m terrible at parties. I usually talk to one person all night. I’m the type a guy who meets a woman, and stays married to her for nine years until she throws me out. I’ve already written about my total disinterest in ever having a menage a trois. Dealing with one woman is hard enough. I struggle sometimes making blogging a more intimate experience for me and for my bloggers-friends. Sometimes I wish for more interaction other than snippy comments back and forth. Maybe it’s just asking too much from blogging. It is what it is.
I recently moved my entire blogroll to a separate page and started doing a “Crush of the Day.” This has greatly lessened my anxiety. I can make believe that I’m having coffee and bagels with just one person at a cool diner, rather than in the middle of a wild party with drunken bloggers taking their tops off. I mean, that could be fun too, but NOT every day.
3)
One problem I’m always having while blogging is remembering where I commented on. For instance, let’s create this scenario:
Sam writes a post about his beloved grandmother. I read his post and love it. I write this comment:
“Hey, Sam, your grandmother sounds cool. How old is she now?”
Sam is impressed that I cared about his grandmother. He writes a long comment all about his wonderful grandmother. And you know what — I forget to go back. I completely forget that I wrote that question. Sam notices in his stats that I never came back. He starts bad-mouthing me to every blogger in town, saying, “Neilochka is a lying phony asshole who hates my grandmother!.” My reputation gets ruined.
A few days ago, I came across two free online applications that follow your comments, so you can keep track of where you have been — Cocomment (review) and Co.mments (review). They sound like they could be useful. But I’m pretty slow in trying new things out (I still don’t have an iPod), so I mention this, hoping that some geeky guy like Kevin will try it out first and report back. The only bad thing about these “comment” followers is that, like with the cellphone, there’s no more excuses anymore for not answering back.
I will actually have to care about your boring grandmother.
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