Is a blogger born or made? Or they are just random acts of egocentric exposure?
Posted at http://quasifictionalviews.blogspot.com/2007/05/fine-art-of-blogging_25.html
I have never been asked to create a post about blogging, so when the email came asking me to answer a few questions, I took the chance. Still pretty new in the fine art of blogging, so I do not know if that means I was tag, memed, or twited ;-) Bear with me while I learned the new lingo.
Why do I blog? What is a blog to you?
I wouldn’t say that I blog, I would say that I post links, news and code that I may need in the future. As a software engineer, I need a searchable place where my notes and thought, but most important, my code can be found. I started in 2005 and after losing my database with all the post, I learn two important lessons, one of course, the fine art of backing up; the second that I actually was using those notes and “articles” pretty often.
I won’t call them articles when they were barely a paste from my clipboard. In 2006 I started cleaning a little bit my blog and posting more towards other people to read than just myself, as I share with coworkers some of my code in my blog.
In 2007 I started reading more blogs from “well-known” bloggers and enjoying their style and learning the great new fast way of sharing information. A blog to me is a faster and more interactive way of sharing information and knowledge than a newspaper or a magazine, I, for once, I canceled all my subscriptions to the LA Times and geek magazines, once I enjoyed. Searching blogs or using RSS to read them gives me immediate access to that information without waiting for a person to deliver the magazine or paper to me. On the same token I like to share with other people the problems and resolved or the little tricks and tips. This is why I post!
How do you pick topics day after day?
Needless to say this is one of the most difficult things to do lately. When I just posted code and tips about code, was pretty simple. Whatever technology or code I was playing at the time, was pasted on my blog, no such a thing as cleaning the code and writing an article about it, was a simple copy and paste.
Now that I started writing a little bit more instead of just posting code, I found myself at night searching for a topic that might be interesting to the 2 people subscribe to my blog. If I’m lucky enough that day I had some good research project and I can write about, a new product or technology coming up. Some weeks I’m so busy at work that when I get home I found myself with nothing to say, therefore I prefer not to post anything that stretching it.
I must come clean to let you know that I have, more than once, posted something, just for posting something. If you read my blog in a regular basis or you are subscribed, you know what I’m talking about. Please let me take this chance to apologize about those minutes of your life that I cannot give you back.
This year, I received more emails from people reading my blog and asking me questions, if the question was already asked by another email, I reply those questions on my blog instead of sending an email back. Something very important to me is to see the timeline of my blog, see where I was a year ago and what kind of technology was I working.
I do see an evolution on my blog, maybe the learning curve is longer than other blogs, but is a path I’m enjoying. So please, do keep the emails coming as from them I build the content.
What do you think about blog template, promotions tools and how you promote yours?
Templates? Promotion tools? Are we still talking about blogging? I haven’t promoted my blog, because I don’t know or I did not search anyway to promote my blog. Right now my blog is on the Microsoft ASP.NET blog roll and from there or Goggle searches are where all my readers come from.
Mainly I talk about AJAX, ASP.NET and C#, so my audients are geeks and nerds like me. I don’t think a bumper sticker can help my blog to be read by more people. I do not know how to promote a blog, blogs should be promoted by peers. That’s how I find out about other bloggers.
Why blogging matters?
Blogging is a way of communication that allows anybody to voice their opinion with a simple mouse click. I do believe blogging is going to develop to a more professional and structured “art”
Cheers
Al