There was a bit of interesting stuff during the afternoon session of WBC, but I was sitting on the floor without my laptop. Don’t feel like reconstructing it :)
In my news aggregator I found several posts about bloggers and their audiences… I don’t have much time on-line to comment in detail, but may be it will catch up with you…
Janine on Invisible effects of blogging:
Though I am -a not very active- beginner, blogging does change my life (well, some aspects of it). I have this imaginary audience in the back of my mind since I started my blog. When I read a book or paper, I do this just a bit more reflective and I articulate my ideas a bit more elaborate than before. Nobody notices, as I do this while thinking for myself. These private reflections and articulations feel good and seem even useful to me. So far, in many instances I do not take the time to write down things in a post. Maybe some day, some of those ideas appear in my weblog, maybe not.Experienced bloggers, do you recognize above? And do you know of other invisible effects of blogging?
John on What Have I Done & Where Am I Going?:
Maybe I have been hiding my blogging frustrations, my doubts. I want to create something out of my blog, but I feel alone in my struggle, even after a year and a half of work! It seems I’ve learned a harsh lesson – No one out there is interested in creating a community with me. Not yet any way. I don’t think I’ve been writing enough about all of the times I’ve felt ignored. That’s a serious issue and something that I’ve been trying and trying to overcome – it’s the reason I’ve sacrificed content on my page, it’s the reason I’m always changing the appearance of my blog. Overcoming the feeling of being ignored is the greatest single motivator in my quest to improve my blog.
[...]Who wants to put the effort into writing and publishing work on a blog if no one is going to read it? I’m not writing for my own benefit, I’m not writing to hear own ideas, I’m not writing to document my studies, I’m not writing to archive my thoughts – I’m writing with the hopes of being read. But I feel like I don’t have an audience. And that feels like shit.
Carla on (Negative) Weblog experiences:
[...]you want to write for someone who is interested, belong to a certain community. But who is your audience, certainly as beginner? Who wants to read my weblog? I would like to be part of “the” network, but how do you become part? One thing I understood (from our in-house expert Lilia) is that you have to link to others, so they’ll find you. Is that how it works?
Janine is also wondering who to write for and about what? I found that I don’t write about my big hobby (running). Why is it for my not interesting enough to write about, while it is one of my largest time-consuming activities (next to work). Is it that I don’t want to share it with “the audience”? Myself, I think it would be boring to bother you with my results and pains (for that’s what runners talk about: what is my time on … (half marathon, 400 meters etc.), and my … hurts (achilles tendons, in my case)).
I guess I’m lucky with discovering my own weblog community pretty fast, I don’t remember much questions or frustrations about my audience (note to myself – check archives, may be something is there). I guess one of the reasons is that I started to write for myself and finding an audience was a surprising side-effect rather than expectation.
Anyway, I’d love to hear about your relations with your audience. Do you have one? Do you care? Is there something to be done to find people who will read you? Do you think about your audience when you write?
This post also appears on channel weblog research
Tags: blog ecosystem, blog reading, blog researchArchived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2004/03/25.html#a1142; comments are here.
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