If it stops moving, a shark dies. So does a blog, without fresh postings on a daily basis. So says Clive Thompson in a longish New York Magazine piece. (Click ‘Blogs to Riches,if you have the patience to read). A Thompson tip to blogging success is – post wittily, and frequently. It helps if you have a team of post-persons working at it, as they do at Boing, Boing, a top-hit in global blogdom. Boing is steamed by a five-member team, all part-timers. They wouldn’t give up their day jobs, though Boing makes more than enough for them all, by way of ad. revenue. As a Boing blogger and novelist Cory Doctorow put it, “I always figured my life was fueling my blogging, so I didn’t want to be just a blogger’.
Blogging isn’t seen a mainstream occupation by most successful bloggers. Folks are journalists, doctors, aviators, and all of them, bloggers. An arm-chair thumb-twiddler wouldn’t have much to blog about, would he? Everyone on the myMysore blog list leads a full life, which would only enrich the blog. But then many of us need to get our blog going first. Clive Thompson writes of three categories – A-list blogs are an elite few drawing massive readership. B-list blogs are the ones that make a promising start, giving rise to a rising curve of readers. But somewhere along the way the curve flattens off as the blogger fails to sustain enthusiasm. A vast majority of blogs come under the C-list of bloggers who toil in relative obscurity.
I wonder where you would slot mymysore.com and its blogs. My sense is we can’t pigeon-hole many of our bloggers into any of the three accepted categories. They belong to the N-list – blogs that may well die a non-starter. People stop checking out on your blog, after having stared at the blank space under your name, whenever they were there before.
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Ramblings of a retired journalist who can't stop writing.
4 comments:
You are right Mr. G.V.K. especially the last bit especially where you mention that the list of bloggers on mymysore blog pages as a list of N or non starters.
Maybe some people have it in them to write and expres themselves and some are slow starting. I find that most bloggers have either never posted an article or item or anything and some have posted a few items sometime last year. It's been months for some. I guess some bloggers don't want to blog as this would make their views well known and maybe they don't want to publicize their view points. Maybe thats an Indian thing? Diplomatic and reserved to the last? I've seen a lot of Indians chatting, in my opinion aimlessly, with people they can't see and perhaps some of them posing to be some one they are not, in real life! But there are'nt that many Indians blogging and hence my comment.
I have stopped opening most of the blog spots on mymysore because a majority of them have not written anything, these are the D category according to me - dead in the water.
I'm getting some response and comments on my blog and actually never expected any to begin with. I don't write to specifically look for comments or response but there has been some interesting ones, some local and some local living in a foreign land.
In one case, I got an offer to write for a website and make money in the bargain. That person is an editor of an aviation website and saw my articles on mymysore blog page of mine!! I'll continue to blog, even if I am traveling around, I guess I just like to keep myself interested and hopefully others as well.
Oh, another thing. My blogging attracted a young chap working on his technical degree in an IIT. He wrote mentioning that he had a lot of questions and wanted to ask them in an e-amil instead of posting questions. I came to know that he was interested in flying and becoming a pilot and I have now become an advisor, guiding him on the various aspects of flight training here and abroad. He continues to read my blogs and sends me frequent e-mail asking for clarifications on his flying carreer decision. I feel good that through this forum, I am able to guide people in my field of activity. This again, I did not anticipate when I first started writing but it is a fulfilling thing to do. I could be blogging more but for my travels and being busy with my aviation carreer.
I am new to the term blogging and after seeing the word blog on mymyosre .com spoke to a friend of mine for an explanation. I learnt that it is the latest form of journalism which can be interactive - as evidenced from the blog by Capt. Anup Murthy. I feel that if blogging is the future of journalism, it is the right thing to happen. This gives us a chance to test our writing skills while also contributing our point of view to the person who started the topic. When we interact with the original "reporters" we get to understand the reasons for their point of view as they are "on site".
But blogging should be more for keeping the interested persons awake and "kicking" to keep the shark at bay, rather than get devoured by it due to long periods of inactivity
I have a clarification for Mr. Madhukar. Blogging is derived from the word "web log" that is to say that a log of your life and experience (like a book diary)is put down in cyber space in an electronic diary. However, keeping a book diary is something that is confidential, usually you don't want others to read it. But this is like exposing your diary to all in cyber space, letting your thoughts and views be known and also allowing the readers of your blog to put their thoughts in and thereby encouraging and enriching the content of your blog.
You are also right in assuming that this is going to be the future of journalism because this medium has great potential for news gatherers to put in their piece and allow readers to voice their opinions and this is what encourages interactivity. In future, as in some TV news cast overseas already has become, the news is going to be interactive. There will be a point in time when you could perhaps ask the news caster on the blog, in real time, what a particular item means or if additional information is needed by you relevant to the subject at hand. We live in interesting times, don't we?
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