I guess Sylvie is right and I need some frequencies next to the answer to make it more clear. I’ll add them later, to the full paper version.
Please, note that these are not the responses (you can find them by following the link), but categories I use to group them.
Responses to the Question 10. Why did you start your weblog? What motivated you?
Those characteristics that mentioned by both bloggers and would be bloggers are marked with *
- Curiosity, interest in experimentation*
- Examples of other people/ other weblogs, encouragement from other bloggers*
- Improving own thinking and learning (by articulation)*
- Organising ideas and references (keeping research notes, organising bookmarks, moving knowledge-sharing/ communication activities from other tools to a weblog) *
- Need for an expression and audience, publishing ideas, bringing ideas to others*
- Interest in communication and sharing*
- As add-on to /emerged from a homepage
- To share life with friends/family (especially being in another city/country), sharing emotions (feeling in love, assault by a stranger)
- Exploring opportunities for a professional use of weblogs (business, teaching, KM) *
- Getting hands-on experience in order to understand weblogs (research, software development, business)
- Demonstrating/promoting weblogs to someone else (clients, national audience)
- Previous (paper) diary/notetaking experiences
- War: to show alternatives for news sources
- Because it’s easy
Would be bloggers only
- Getting connected with people with similar interests
- Improving own thinking as result of a feedback
Regular bloggers
- Finding identity, gaining exposure and credibility in the field
- Improving knowledge and skills: related to technologies, writing, discipline and being organised, ability to pose questions, ability to distinguish between public and private
- Serendipity, feedback and dialogue contributing to idea evaluation and development
- Networking and building relations, finding people with similar interest, finding friends, finding a community
- Conversations and knowledge sharing
- Audience and exposure, easy/cheap/fast way to promote/push ideas
- Fun, joy, addiction
- Depth
- Time saving
People, trying out a weblog
- Other webloggers as a great source
- Easy of publishing
- News aggregator as a tool to access other weblogs
- Following up students
- “the rather poor reciprocity, the endless circularity and rehashing/repetition, the low level of dialog”
My conclusions in brief
Blogging is still about early adopters (I perceive “curiosity and experimentation” as a motivation to start a weblog as a sign of an early adopter).
Many important values of blogging emerge only after starting it. Especially those related to the dialogue and building relations with others. Is “blogging = easy webpublishing” slogan a good way to promote weblogs?
Tags: BlogTalk paper, motivationArchived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2003/05/01.html#a571; comments are here.
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