Blogging It Old-School

Is blogging all washed up? Scott thinks so, and he's been at it even longer than I have. He says no one has the attention span for blogs anymore—it's all about the microblogging now. I'm very active on Twitter, but I still think of my blog as my main online presence.

That being said, you've probably noticed that after not missing a single day of blogging in who-knows-how-many years, lately I've skipped one almost every week. Why is that? Am I burnt out? Have I already said all there is to say? I think it's probably a combination of a lot of factors—not least of which is that I'm busier now with work than I was when I started blogging.

This has never been a niche blog, and I never wanted it to be. That's the #1 piece of advice given to new bloggers: Find your niche! Well, too bad. If you read my blog, you get a snippet of whatever is on my mind at that moment—a movie or book review, a recipe, an anecdote about my kids, a gripe about something going on in Washington, a discussion of a pet editorial peeve, you name it. I recently told someone that it's as if we met for coffee every day and you said, "What's on your mind right now?" and I had to answer with whatever popped up first. So, no, I won't get any big sponsors (not that I'm trying to—I don't intend to ever have ads on this blog), and some other sites won't link to me because I'm not only a food blogger or only a mommy blogger or whatever, and that's just fine with me.

Some of my readers come for the recipes and tune out when I get all grammatical on them. Others love the family stories and couldn't care less about my political views. That's all OK with me. I recognize that as this thing continues, it needs to be what I need it to be—and that's not necessarily any one thing.

So, thank you for reading. I plan to get back into my everyday habit, because I do find it therapeutic to commit something to the cyberspace on a daily basis, but I hope you'll be patient in the meantime.

Comments

[Cathy Ritter]

Love your blog Karen .... and I've been reading it from Day 1! I'm looking forward to reading more ... recipes, family stuff, grammatical stuff ... I love it all! :-)

[pam]

Do what you love and don't mind those who write blog posts about what others should be writing on their blogs!

[Susan]

I'm still reading! But I'm not blogging so much. I think my next post may be "Bye Bye Bloggy". I'm also considering leaving it up and just posting a couple times a month - linking to it from my facebook account. But I still read you. And Mir.

[Margaret]

I don't see how microblogging can possibly satisfy people who actually like to WRITE. (not quip or get instant messages back)

[Tonya]

I stick my fingers in my ears and do the la-la-la-la-la thing when I hear about "blogs are dying." I refuse to even think about it. And like you, I blog for the helluva it. No desire to go the Dooce route, etc. It's just a personal, fun part of me that I know I don't attend to quite as diligently as I used to, but that's OK. It's an appendage and I love my appendages and I truly wish to go to my grave with my blog intact.

[James]

Like your blog, mine never had a niche. Now that I have no time to blog regularly, I see that most of my impetus to blog is satisfied by my microblogging; it was always really about talking to friends and maybe making some new friends.

Twitter helps make new friends and Facebook is about talking to my existing friends. So, I've got that somewhat covered.

Will I go back to blogging over the summer? It remains to be seen.

David is right, to the extent that he's noticed a change in what people want. But noticing that blogs are less hip is not the same as knowing that they're going to go away.

I still read the blogs that I feel the strongest personal connections to, while I rarely read a niche blog. Entirely opposite of the advice. Perhaps I'm just an odd duck.

[James]

Er, Scott, not David.

[Michael Harrison]

Keep it up, Karen, you are doing a great job. It you miss a day or two here and there, what does it matter? I figure that if you are too busy to write one day, you will have plenty to talk about the next!

[Steve]

I read your blog simply because I like you (though we've never met!). I think we would be friends in real life.

[Kelly]

I do read some niche blogs, but I enjoy the personal ones the most, with a smattering of the author's life. I read. I cook. I punctuate. I have kids that play baseball!. I play WWF (and continue to get my vocabulary choices handed to me on a silver platter). So much in common.

I know my blog is just a random record of our family. I started it to keep my mom a little more in touch. I don't mind the lack of readership. It's nice to be able to look back and see what we were up to in January of 2007.

[Kelly]

And I punctuate incorrectly. Ack! English teacher fail!

[Sharon]

I like it just how it is!

[scott]

I don't think blogs are "dying." To some extent they represent an important wave in the internet bringing global publishing to the masses, but they are not the only wave. It does not matter if they fade away or if they merely become a standard and unremarkable part of the web. (I think it's the latter.)

[Kathy]

I think that three, four years ago, when nearly everyone and their cat (literally) were starting blogs, the blogosphere became glutted, and it was harder for a blogger without an established community to find a niche. You couldn't just be a personal blogger anymore. I wrote a nicheless, directionless blog for years before I gave it up for something more specific, (I have a music blog), and even that is too broad. I don't blogs are dying; I think there are too many.

[Sean]

I found your blog by clicking a link from Hyperbole and a Half, one of my favorites. I too am a blogger and like you, I blog about pretty much whatever comes to mind. Kudos to us for bucking the system, eh?

[DI]

I actually started my blog just to be book reviews. But I couldn't resist the pull of the internet as an audience for my rants and raves and incredibly insightful, um, insights.

I like your blog for being eclectic. Keep it up!