My 10 years of blogging: Reflections, Lessons & Some Stats Too — Tech News and Analysis:
Today we differentiate between blogging on blogging platforms and sharing on social platforms, but that is just semantics. The essence of blogging is not defined by a platform but by what I learned from Dave and his blogging platform — that media now is raw, collaborative and instantaneous.
The one thing I promised myself I wouldn’t do as I started to write more frequently these past two weeks is talk about how I’m going to blog more, or what I want my blog to become in 2012. I’ve thankfully found more interesting things to write about so that hasn’t been a problem. This article and quote from Om Malik nevertheless reminds me why I continue to make the effort every year, and it reminds me of what I like so much about the medium.
Even though sharing is very different and much more popular now than it was 10 years ago, it’s still the reason why blogging persists. We blog to share our opinions, our interests, and to show that have something to say.
I think there’s a creative need people have that pulls so many of them to platforms that promise them the power of expression. Just like social networks, blogs give us a place to express our raw thoughts. They give us a place to share and link to our favourite parts of the web, and they give us the power to share instantly.
Near the end of his article, Om includes a nice list of 10 lessons he’s learned over his past decade of blogging. It’s worth taking a look at.
(I started to write about how blogs give us the opportunity to create an identity for ourselves online, and avoid having to rely entirely on other platforms, but I don’t think that point is relevant anymore. There are now plenty of examples of people who have defined their own identity through their success on services without having their own homepage. There are also thousands of people whose fame in the real world carried over online without requiring a homepage.)
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