What's your blog, for, anyway?
jaipur posted a couple interesting things recently (as usual, admittedly), first about turning your LJ into a book, and then about LJ as a social medium, and what other social media sites were replacing it or not.
At root, for me, both posts relate to the question of "what's your blog for, anyway?" Which leads to (possibly) and "how can you make that happen for you?"
Mine is for three major reasons, and various small ones.
One is so I can comment to other people's blogs. I like reading Deep Thoughts and the nitter natter of the day-to-day stuff. I like the commonalities of experience (and reading those); I like being teased to think more or differently or sidewise to my habits, and comment-sharing does this generally in a very welcoming, low-key way.
Another is communication of me, to share me with other people, but in a passive way (read it if you like or have time; don't if you don't; it's cool). Me -- not just my thoughts, my art, some of my work, but the nitter natter of the living as me. That's why it's online at all. I have a paper journal book too (more portable, more private, decorated in different ways.) I know that's a little ... oh ... not exactly vain. (Look at me! Me!) Not exactly arrogant, or self-absorbed... but it has hints of all those things.
A third is for me. What was I doing, what was I thinking, who connected to that, what happened when? My paper book could fill in this (and sometimes does) but I don't always feel the need to be that me-focused or private. (I'll probably use that LJBook service, though. I like paper...)
Other little reasons are all spins on those, pretty much.
And then there are the methods to get these things done. I found that over the past several months or more, I wasn't posting, or at least not enough for my own needs. It was too sparse, too disjointed -- just unsatisfying. This is why I picked up twitter (actually ping*). I figured if I got myself in the habit of quick short things, it would help me with the third reason especially, and some of the second (when I post links and such from wandering over the web). It would give me a little bit of a picture of my day as they happen (which they do), and I would (sometimes) be encouraged to expand an annotate those collections (which I do). So that's a success, for me.
Although there are features of LJ I don't care for, I probably will not make the effort to move to another blogging service (I've got experiments on WordPress and Blogger, as I tried for topical blogs -- which I didn't stick to -- but at least I kinda know what those services and some others will do in case a client needs something bloggish). Similarly, I'm having the devil of a time sticking with SWAPA (a different paper thing that does some of the same things my having a blog does). Had I woven my life differently, maybe all those threads would be visible and strong, but ... no, sadly, sufficiently.
I still don't post enough Deep Thoughts -- I hardly even essay them, although I wish I would. (Partly I probably don't think them; partly I never did; partly I don't have the time, truly.) I do think a lot about the nature of communication in different media (text, voice, blogs, public, semi-public, private, style, etiquette, communicability, intention, confusion, emotion, time, separation, essay, status, poems, notes, letters, etc.) Maybe someday I'll have something different and useful to say about it. (I also think a lot about science, environmental degradation and rehabilitation, climate change, money, politics, scale, and all sorts of other things too. But then, you likely knew that... ).
Anyway. That's mine, more or (rather) less, for now.
* I use ping 'cause it feeds several directions at once. It feeds to twitter, and I can use LoudTwitter's service to collect those here, as you've seen (I filter out twitter replies and twitter #tags). It feeds to FaceBook, which is mostly silly and annoying but connects to people I don't find here (I hide all the quiz results; I hate their images policy). It feeds to LinkedIn, so I can show a little activity on my professional side. I have it set up so I feed to different things depending on the content of my status post.
What's yours for?
At root, for me, both posts relate to the question of "what's your blog for, anyway?" Which leads to (possibly) and "how can you make that happen for you?"
Mine is for three major reasons, and various small ones.
One is so I can comment to other people's blogs. I like reading Deep Thoughts and the nitter natter of the day-to-day stuff. I like the commonalities of experience (and reading those); I like being teased to think more or differently or sidewise to my habits, and comment-sharing does this generally in a very welcoming, low-key way.
Another is communication of me, to share me with other people, but in a passive way (read it if you like or have time; don't if you don't; it's cool). Me -- not just my thoughts, my art, some of my work, but the nitter natter of the living as me. That's why it's online at all. I have a paper journal book too (more portable, more private, decorated in different ways.) I know that's a little ... oh ... not exactly vain. (Look at me! Me!) Not exactly arrogant, or self-absorbed... but it has hints of all those things.
A third is for me. What was I doing, what was I thinking, who connected to that, what happened when? My paper book could fill in this (and sometimes does) but I don't always feel the need to be that me-focused or private. (I'll probably use that LJBook service, though. I like paper...)
Other little reasons are all spins on those, pretty much.
And then there are the methods to get these things done. I found that over the past several months or more, I wasn't posting, or at least not enough for my own needs. It was too sparse, too disjointed -- just unsatisfying. This is why I picked up twitter (actually ping*). I figured if I got myself in the habit of quick short things, it would help me with the third reason especially, and some of the second (when I post links and such from wandering over the web). It would give me a little bit of a picture of my day as they happen (which they do), and I would (sometimes) be encouraged to expand an annotate those collections (which I do). So that's a success, for me.
Although there are features of LJ I don't care for, I probably will not make the effort to move to another blogging service (I've got experiments on WordPress and Blogger, as I tried for topical blogs -- which I didn't stick to -- but at least I kinda know what those services and some others will do in case a client needs something bloggish). Similarly, I'm having the devil of a time sticking with SWAPA (a different paper thing that does some of the same things my having a blog does). Had I woven my life differently, maybe all those threads would be visible and strong, but ... no, sadly, sufficiently.
I still don't post enough Deep Thoughts -- I hardly even essay them, although I wish I would. (Partly I probably don't think them; partly I never did; partly I don't have the time, truly.) I do think a lot about the nature of communication in different media (text, voice, blogs, public, semi-public, private, style, etiquette, communicability, intention, confusion, emotion, time, separation, essay, status, poems, notes, letters, etc.) Maybe someday I'll have something different and useful to say about it. (I also think a lot about science, environmental degradation and rehabilitation, climate change, money, politics, scale, and all sorts of other things too. But then, you likely knew that... ).
Anyway. That's mine, more or (rather) less, for now.
* I use ping 'cause it feeds several directions at once. It feeds to twitter, and I can use LoudTwitter's service to collect those here, as you've seen (I filter out twitter replies and twitter #tags). It feeds to FaceBook, which is mostly silly and annoying but connects to people I don't find here (I hide all the quiz results; I hate their images policy). It feeds to LinkedIn, so I can show a little activity on my professional side. I have it set up so I feed to different things depending on the content of my status post.
What's yours for?