I spent this most recent weekend up at a cabin with some friends. Being away from the Internet for 3 days was actually a really good thing for me. No email, no RSS feeds to read (although I have 200+ articles to catch up on)… just good times with some friends and copious amounts of food.
Before I left on I trip I was planning on writing a post about how much it sucks writing a blog that doesn’t have a wide circle of influence. I found a graph from technorati showing the number of blogs they index over time, and I drew little arrows showing when some of the A-List bloggers started. The theme of the post was basically that since there are over 50,000,000 blogs now and the Internet is completely saturated with them, it is nearly impossible to be heard among the crowd… unless you are at the top.
But my little weekend away from the Internet gave me a little perspective. I asked myself “what makes an A-List blogger stand out?” and my answer was “the summation of their contributions to the blogging community.” The reason A-List bloggers are well known is because they have provided value and service to the community. They give people a reason to read their blogs. Then I went on to think about what I have contributed to the blogging community, and I did not have to think for long because I haven’t really provided any value to the blogging community.
Stuart, one of the ten friends that went to the cabin with me, has a fantastic wealth of knowledge about music. His stories about bands and the evolution of their music was fascinating. But it made me wonder what I am an expert on. Do I have a wealth of knowledge people would be interested in? I have been going to university for four years… there has to be something I know lots about.
What value can I provide readers to this site?
… more to follow …
2 comments ↓
I believe you touched on the whole purpose of blogging above, stating that it is providing content that is of interest to someone and contributing something worthwhile to the community.
With that being said, I don’t really see the point in setting out to become an A-list blogger and I’m sure the Mark Cubans and Robert Scobles didn’t intend on this at all. They simply provided interesting content that proved to be worthwhile to a large body of people. If you do the same then I’m sure there will be people out there who will want to read it. However, if you simply get caught up in your own agenda of internet stardom then you’ll end up creating trivial content and losing sight of the entire purpose of blogging. Worst case scenario? Everyone stops reading your blog.
IMHO, if you want to be a good blogger you should blog for the sake of blogging and b/c you really love it. Write about whatever you’re passionate about. Forget about the celebrity (at least for now) and try and write the best, most interesting stuff for the people that do read your blog.
Thanks Trenton. I’m starting to see the importance of that.
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