The Blog Thing part 2

There was a brief but interesting discussion about blogs and blogging in my email group. Somebody asked what exactly is a blog and do people actually read them. This got me thinking because I have thought about starting my own many times before. Every time I would get stumped by those exact same questions: What would my blog be and would anybody read it. My answers would be: I have no idea and no.

It's not that I'm not exposed to blogs- my favorite sites are actually blogs: myextralife.com and penny-arcade.com. Extralife is a personal blog by Scott Johnson, a middle-aged family man who grew up as a gamer. Penny-Arcade is a web-comic blog by two late 20's gamer who are now married with young kids. The common thread here is the closeness in age and love of gaming.

That is the key I think, it's all about what interests you. I've seen way too many blogs that deal primarily with the bloggers' personal lives. Well I don't want to read about other people's lives, problems and all - I have enough problems of my own. What Extralife and Penny-Arcade do right is they talk about things and events in context of how it affects them - readers can relate to those.

So what will this blog be about? I'm not sure yet. Would anybody read it? Probably not.

Here's a discussion in Menard's blog about the blog thing.