Tuesday, February 25, 2003

SAILING THE SEAS OF BLOG

Joggua, in his most recent post, brought up some good ideas. He is examining why certain people are blogging, and focusing on those bloggers who journal personal experiences, writing as though other people will be reading it.

Joggua writes "I've been noticing this trend lately in writing. Not so much in writings by established authors, but more as I've become exposed to writing groups, writing classes, etc. It seems so many people want to share their real life stories, and want to hold them true to what really happened, often sacrificing style -- or just plain ol' good story telling -- in order to stick to the facts. I'm not sure if this is because these people are overly eager for other people to get to know them, or because they are mislead into thinking their mundane daily life is much more interesting than everyone else's. But what I am sure about is that fiction is almost always much more interesting than true stories, and liars tell the best stories."

Well I agree that fiction is much more interesting, on average, than non fiction, I am not sure joggua has fairly represented these bloggers as a group.

He writes, "Everyone has access to a loud speaker; only problem is, damn near everyone has one now, so it's hard to sort through all the noise, and consequently, if you find a few to focus on, chances are they won't be saying anything worth [being] heard."

"...and yet, you still find yourself listening to them."

I say to him the same I say to those people who dislike Howard Stern, "Change the channel." In this case, it is much easier.

Many bloggers, Myself and Joggua included, entertain the idea of having a wide range of readership. We write that way, and even track the visitors so we can see if we get anyone new. In this regard, Joggua is doing a much better job. His blog focuses on things people might actually want to hear about, from the process of writing in a blog, to newsworthy events.

My blog, however, falls into a slightly different category. Far from the audience of one, but farther from the global audience, my blog, as well as most, I feel, have a select audience of readers who share life experience with the blogger. Most often, as is the case with me, I think they are people the blogger actually knows.

This vien of bloggers writes as if they have a global audience, and even can envision such a thing happening (I am regestered on globeofblogs), but know who they have as readers right now. Those people are family and friends. They are people who are interested in the bloggers life, no matter how mundane, just as they would be were the blogger telling them the story over dinner. They do not need to relate their stories to the world at large, because their readership is a group of people who just want to know about the reader.

This fanbase can actually grow, however slowly, when other people, randomly, I would assume, stumble across the blog and, for one reason or another, gravitate towards the personality of the blogger. In this light, the blogger must be sure to stand out form others, if, and only if, they want extended readership.

Of course, were you to ask me which of the two I prefer, I would say Joggua's style of blogging, which offers a rich examination of th eworld around him, beats a more personal Blog such as mine. By and large, it will have a better reader base, as well as better content, and more developed themes. He is doing an exemplary job of showing the full scale of what a blog can accomplish.

However, when he soars with the eagles, of which blogging has so few, he needs be aware that some of the pigeons, who others find interesting, might just seem pedestrian to him as a result of his elevated status. Most people would wish to observe the eagle in flight, but that does not mean a pigeons flight is any less an example of a bird.

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