I have to sympathise with the views expressed by Xanadb in his final post.
To my mind the bloggersphere has reached a saturation point. I just can’t be bothered following them anymore. A case in point was the recent announcement of apple’s Video iPod, and the whole hype around web2.0. I don’t really need to read about these things across 2 dozen blogs , each one adding little information or worthwhile opinion. Why do bloggers feel so compelled to echo each other ? Why do they feel the need to write “I’m turning off comments” posts ? (or “I’m taking a break from blogging” posts ?). Who gives a fuck about your comment spam problem ? Being part of this whole blogosphere thing makes me feel distinctly icky so I’m bowing out. Tags, pagerank, trackbacks, pings – the whole thing is tired (or maybe I just don’t “get it”).
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All of which is a long winded way of saying that this blogging thing is heavily weighted towards a small handful of influential A-Listers and frankly I’d rather not be part of the rat-race (that’s what it feels like blogging has become – what with ‘how to blog successfully’ books and sites sprouting like weeds). I think it’s time for a restart.
CTRL+ALT+DEL.
I have often had similar thoughts, usually about my own blog’s relevance on the internet. But I still plug away, and I do go through asking myself why the hell I do it, but I seem to always come back. I must be addicted. Best of luck to Xanadb!
Standing around expecting to get noticed is going to get you nowhere. There are new blogs created every few minutes. The global economy means you are competing with everyone. All 30Millions blogs. Unless you get noticed and linked to by others you’re not going to get the adoration you want.
Yeah as Xanadb says there’s an A List, there are always going to be Top X lists. If you want to get noticed, you need to network, you need to play the game. This is how things work. Unless the most fair blog checking search engine comes along and ranks you as being just as good as an A lister. That is if you want to become an A Lister and you want to be part of that rat race.
You don’t have to be in the rat race if you blog. You don’t have to blog to anyone but yourself. Many of the things I blog about are notes to myself and thoughts for re-reading at a later date. “To thine own self be true.”
I have to say you see this “Things aren’t the same man, it’s too commercial, everyone is doing it.” It is the sound of the maven being pissed that what they felt was an snobish pursuit is now being done by the masses. It’s like the adoring music fans that turn on their band when at last they hit the big time and make money for the first time. “Those starving artists sold out by signing up to the MAN.”
You know, Gavin, it might be true…but when I look at the statistics concerning the readers, I notice that the figures are quite encouraging…numerous ppl come to the Eminem blog…I do think that you have a quality blog and that you should keep doing what you’re doing…good blogs make a difference among garbage blogs…keep doing your good work:)
Isa
My feelings on the subject are somewhere along the lines of “blog for you, not for what the blogosphere can do for you”. (Kindred to what Damien said!)