I have had a standing invitation from Diogenes - one of my blogger friends to write about what is blog to me and how I blog and why for his ongoing project at Fine Art of Blogging. Here I go.
Blogs are a lot more to me that you see at this and some my other blogs (here and here). Let me recall how it all started. I've been "blogging" in one form or another since as long as I care to remember. The word "blog" didn't exist then. Nor did Google - it was Yahoo! and Alta Vista then! ;)
People had "personal websites" where they would "showcase" themselves, their interests, their hobbies, their photos, their art, their poetry and lyrics, their favourite websites, what they do, their likes and dislikes, whatever. Now it is called personal branding. Almost as an "aside", personal websites would include a journal that was very much like an online diary. Or the forerunner of the blog. But it was only a part of a personal website, and was by no means the central focus. I very rarely wrote consistently about a specific topic. I only used the word "niche" when talking about exclusive boutiques, may be!
Blogging has matured over time. Similarly my reasons for blogging too have evolved. My theory is blogging is on a spectrum from less blog to more blog. [Yes] I still do everything I have mentioned above but I love to write, express ideas, and reach out and meet other people. I am meeting a lot of cool and interesting people, and blogging and documenting those meetings for the most part is fun. But what I really value is my every growing community that is forming in the process.
Apart from networking (also personal branding and showcasing what I do and love), I firmly believe is that blogging has emerged as leading marketing tool in this attention age. We need to learn and teach blogging as we learn and teach marketing.
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