I’ve had this link archived for a little while, and today’s the day I decided to be arsed to comment on it. A long-term blogger known as Greg posted about what he’s learned about blogging in his 2000th blog post. I enjoyed reading it, and it made me ask myself the questions:

• What do you get out of blogging?
• What is it you want to get out of blogging
• Do you feel like you have to post at least once per day?
• Do you think your blog is a ’successful’ blog?

I’ve been thinking about these questions for a little while, and now I think I finally have a couple of answers, and I’d like to share them with you.

What do you get out of blogging?

Well, I think blogging is definitely a very personal thing (duh!), and it’s important for the blogger to feel like they’re getting something worthwhile out of investing their time in a blog. I feel like I get a lot out of blogging.

The first is it’s a bit of a venting mechanism. Sometimes I want to share ideas, sometimes I want to scream in joy about nailing an issue (such as getting ATi drivers working in Ubuntu :), sometimes I feel like I just want to get something off my chest. To me, my blog is a means of dumping my thoughts in a place where other people can share and enjoy them. Sure, some people might hate them, but that’s ok! All they have to do is choose another URL and they’ll be redirected away from my obnoxiousness.

I find that having a venting/ranting location is good for me as a professional. I share some frustration and learn from what other people have to say. I hope that other people can come here and learn from my experiences too.

On a slightly different tact, I use it as a means to make myself stay up to date with what’s going on in the industry. I like to read a lot of news sites, and every now and then I’ll post interesting bits of news that I’ve found along the way. I try not to post things that aren’t interesting, though I may not succeed all the time. An let’s face it, “interesting” is a matter of opinion, so chances are a lot of people will come here and find my blogs and links completely shit-boring. I feel the need to share this kind of information around as much as I can. I get a lot out of staying in touch with things, and I am sure that I’m not the only one. This is just another way of spreading the wealth.

By the same token, I am a teacher by nature I do like to teach people. As I’ve said in my previous posts, I think that Software Development isn’t a black art that should be kept secret. Knowledge and information should be shared, and this blog gives me another way of working to that philosophy. You can post tips and snippets of code for people to read and do what they want with. You can post challenges and watch other people’s minds at work. You can literally provoke all kinds of thought! It’s quite amazing.

Finally, I love hearing what other people have to say about what I’ve posted. I used to run a forum or two a while back and they were great fun. People can be really amazing, and their comments and ideas are extremely thought provoking. Not only is it good when you find like-minded people coming here to post their thoughts, but even more so when someone with a completely different outlook comes along and points out something that you hadn’t really thought about before. The bloggosphere is a great place for the encouragement of interesting discussion about any topic you feel like discussing. I find it not only enlightening, but extremely entertaining.

What is it you want to get out of blogging

I am lucky as far as my blog goes. For the most part I get everything that I want (see the list above :)). There are some gaps though. I would like more frequent and more in-depth responses from people, but that’s something I can’t expect. I would like to see more people come out with comments on why what I’ve said is bad or wrong - after all, I want it to be a good learning experience for me too.

As a writer (if I’m allowed to say that, since there’s a chance that I’m technically not a writer in the true sense of the word) I like people to read what I write! I like people to read it, enjoy reading it and not struggle to get through it (especially when I’ve written a fair bit :)). I’ve had some people comment (verbally) that they enjoy reading what I write, as it’s entertaining and light-hearted. I hope that I continue to wrote posts in a manner which gives people this kind of feeling. That’s something that I would like to see more of I like the idea of people reading my posts and enjoying the experience even if they don’t agree with anything I’ve said.

Do you feel like you have to post at least once per day?

Well, yes I do. I want to keep my blog “alive”. I want people to come back to the site knowing that there’s a good chance of finding something new. I know what it’s like to go to a place that you find interesting and be disappointed that there’s no new content up there to enjoy. The problem here is that if you post every day even if you don’t really have anything meaningful to say then you start to reduce the quality of your blog.

So, let me answer by saying this: I feel like every time I post it has to be interesting, or funny (or both ;)). I feel that posting quality is more important than posting quantity - but I would very much like to have both quality and quantity. I’ll be focussing on the former, and hope that the latter happens by itself

As a final comment on this point - I think Keef’s recent blog post is bang on with regards to blog content. In general people don’t want to hear what you have had for breakfast, or whether or not the cat’s puked on the carpet again. Day to day activities, in my opinion, are one of the most boring things to read about on blogs (unless of course you can make an entertaining story out of it - at which point it’s no longer a mundane activity). If I ever post something like this, please DDoS my site (ok, that’s not your cue to DDoS regardless).

Do you think your blog is a ’successful’ blog?

I think this question is essentially asking “Do you get everything you want out of your blog?”. Success is relative to the person viewing the site. In my eyes, my site isn’t totally successful, but I don’t consider it to be unsuccessful. I’ve already had some interesting posts with some very interesting responses. I have a fair few subscribers to my RSS feed who read what I write on a fairly regular basis, and that’s very fulfilling. I enjoy writing, and I enjoy seeing my blog live and breathe.

I think my blog is more successful than not, but I do think that there’s room for improvement. I reckon the readers will have a stack of suggestions for improvement (so feel free to post them).

Conclusion

I have enjoyed this little brain-dump immensely. I hope you guys enjoy reading it, particularly those of you who have your own blogs. Let me know what you think as far as what makes your blog an enjoyable experience as I’m sure many people’s views will differ greatly from mine.

Next up, I’m probably going post something that’s more along the rant/vent lines. The need to get some frustration out is quite large, and this is the ideal place to stick it - especially after a week as bad as this one!