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Friday, January 19, 2007

The Future of this Blog

Sometimes, I am not really sure what I would like this blog to be.

When I first started it, I started it anonymously and used it pretty much the same way I would write in any journal I kept. I wrote a lot about how I felt about things and I didn’t worry about people I know reading it. People read it, of course. But it was strangers who were reading it. It was like having a private diary with feedback!

At some point though, I realized that keeping a blog could also be a useful tool for communicating with people I already know. It could be used in lieu of emails. It would allow people to catch up with me without requiring them to put in too much of an effort if they didn’t want to. Besides, I have always kind of believed the there is a bit of intimacy when one knows the minutia of another person’s life.

I made that change around 3 years ago, just as blogs were exploding in popularity. I got traffic. Boy! Did I get traffic. At the height of my blogs popularity, I think I had around 100 daily readers and another 100 who checked in at least once a week. I was all about that, let me tell you. I guess it would be fair to call me an attention whore ;).

For a while I kept up the more personal blog too until I learned why keeping two blogs which are mostly the same but one has additional tidbits leads the web savvy stalker types to find the personal blog. And that of course means having creepy people read one’s web log or in my case, one particular creepy person who probably knew where I lived or could easily find out!

So I stopped keeping the more personal blog and just have this one (mirrored at two sites for my reader’s convenience). But as it happens, the popularity of blogging in general and the popularity of my own blog as well as my interest in blogging have all kind of waned. So I don’t get the tons of attention although I still have a fair number of readers (and I appreciate all of you!). But I also don’t really need the attention in the way I did 3 years ago when I was in the middle of some serious drama with some other people and in the middle of a serious life crisis with myself.

So, I guess what I am saying is that I am not sure what the future of this blog will be. I might try to write every day even if I have nothing important to say. I might try to document things about my life for myself in case I ever get old and forget things (I have chosen to forget that when I read blog entries I wrote just a couple of years ago, I sometimes realize that I would have already forgotten whatever incident I wrote about if I hadn’t put it in the blog). I might try to write for others. I might abandon it altogether and go back to writing in a notebook kept by my bed. I simply don’t know.

2 comments:

L.O.U. said...

" I was all about that, let me tell you. I guess it would be fair to call me an attention whore ;)."
You are not...
Everyone would love to readers & attention!!!!
Whatever you do, please do quit blogging. I for one will suffer greatly!
You have been there for me even when no body else was around & your friendship means a lot... to me....
Oh, by the way, It's Proshat!!!

Raymond said...

Hm.. I just smiled a little bit when I saw Proshat's name there! I would love to find her blog again. Which brings me to you, Lynne, and another factor to weigh when considering to blog or not to blog: when people like me are busy with all my personal cr*p and not participating in blogs or in life very much, little smiles come back to the face when I look up the old friends. Just a thought.
- RF