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Are millions of people Wrong?

May 18, 2006 by Jim Parker in blogging

A comment via email from Sundar (an Indian Buddy of mine):

Please explain me blogging…
Who has got time…to let alone write it….but to read all those…I do not get it…with all the flood of content around in the web… why would people spend time to read blogs… I know it is just me… there are already thousands of people already absorbed in blogs…

Actually, it is 10’s of millions involved in blogging.

Anyhow, it’s all about one simple thing: Contribution. See my first post: http://www.attentiongrab.com/?p=11
…or maybe it’s about two things…Contribution & Relationships…Oh yeah, relationships are key.

Your questions above are exactly what I was asking before I started a blog. Why would somebody ever read what so and so (who may know nothing) has to say about so and so??? Who’s got the time to sift through the crap? Why do people read this nonsense?

Yes, there is tons and tons of content all over the web. But it’s not just about the content. It’s about the person behind the content. Nobody reads blogs just looking for content value. People read blogs looking for people they like.

When I read something I really, really enjoy and respect and learn from, automatically, I consider the person writing the blog to be a good person…a person that I can relate to. I might contact that person. I might write a comment in their blog. But the key thing is that I have formed a relationship with that person. It is now a person that I could walk up to on a street and have a conversation with.

Here are some examples of interaction via blogging:

I just received a thank you from Danah Boyd. Danah is quite a celebrity in the blogging world. She’s been on National cable news as an expert talking head on Bill O’Reilly’s show. And she’s sending me a thank you note for me sending her a music recommendation. Obviously I will never meet Danah face to face (though I wouldn’t mind it). She’s not my best friend. She’s not even a friend, really. Yet, we have a connection. And yes, it is a small, minuscule, tiny connection. But a connection is a connection. Something is always better than nothing, right?

And…There’s this experienced VC guy in Manhattan (Union Square - 14th and Broadway) whom I am a big fan of. I read all about his business and his perspective on technology in the US. I also read about his family. I look at their vacations in Seattle, Vale, hiking, biking, skiing. I see his kid’s baseball games. I hear the music he likes. I know where his office is and I know one of his favorite places to have lunch in the summer time. He’s opened up his entire life to the world. And what that buys him and his family is familiarity. That is, people all over the world are familiar with the family. And familiarity opens doors. When you know a lot about someone, it is easier to find something in common with that person. When you find something in common with them, you can more easily relate and communicate with them………so………. Forget MySpace and Facebook. Fred Wilson has created the ultimate social networking platform for families! See http://avc.blogs.com .

So it’s not about reading and getting information. It’s about building a relationship with someone you respect. I can’t build a relationship with CNN. But I can build a relationship with another blogger if I want to. Blogging is much more than passive content. It is a conversation. Now that’s entertainment!

Thus, you can’t possibly understand blogging until you blog. Blogging is not one-way old communication where you have a producer and a consumer. It is interactive. It is conversational.

Become a blogger. Then you will understand.

And it’s easy to do. You don’t have to worry about the fact that you’re not a world class writer (which obviously I am not). You don’t have to be concerned if you don’t get more than 20 people reading your blog. All you have to worry about is getting one single reader/contributer - somebody who comes back often and leaves comments.

So how do you do it? You simply write about what you like…or don’t like…or what you love…what makes you happy or sad…what’s important to you…what’s silly to you…just all about you. Now you may think that nobody cares about such nonsense. That is actually untrue. People who know you will want to know more about you. And when several people start paying attention others will start to notice. Maybe even people you don’t know. Either way, people will read - they always do… just as long as you keep giving them something to come back for. So give them more. Lots more!

And encourage your friends to write blogs too. Next thing you know, they’ll be asking you to comment on their blogs. Ah-HAH!!! You’ve just created a network. Now you know what it means to blog.

There is nothing wrong with going out and grabbing some attention. Please come back to Attention Grab and tell us how you did it.

4 Comments »

I understand and I do not understand.
(It is a duality which exists every where arround us)
Wait, may be I resisting to accept it (blogging)… since this is started recently and new to me (like you said about your grandma in another blog…) or Am I old already…? or is it a new phenomenon I fail to understand?
Whatever… I think I need time to grasp and then make time to read the blogs (if convinced).

I think it is some kind of addiction.
I fully support the idea about contribution and sharing… but the relationship part is what I do not fully understand.

Thanks for the reply… (how much time you spent on typing that out)

Comment by Sundar — May 18, 2006 @ 7:22 am
It looks as though you are already hooked. You addict you.

(oh, and by the way, you’ve just contributed to the relationship!)

Comment by Jim Parker — May 18, 2006 @ 7:31 am
Although I don’t blog, I think I’m beginning to understand it.

I think that what Jim is saying is that you can use a blog to express yourself globally. You can post thoughts, dreams, pictures and the like; all refecting your interests, and let the world know you exist.

You make use the web to put this information ‘out there’ so that others with similar interests us might see it and respond. Thus, creating two way communcation (or 3-way or more) with other people around the world.

You can think of it as the web’s equivalent of a social gathering. When you go out somewhere and meet a new person, you first start out by saying little things like “Hello” and “Hows the weather”. Eventually, you start talking about things that interest you both and you establish the beginnings of a relationship.

With a blog, you can post your interests and thoughts and someone who reads it may respond to your postings with their own posting, or even refer to yours with their own blog. This creates a form of communication between the two of you.

Of course, you don’t get the direct, immediate response you would get from a face-to-face meeting. And of course, the entire web experience is much more impersonal.

But you have to think not of interacting with a cold, simple web page, but instead think of yourself as interacting with the human being that is expressing him or herself begind the web page. Thinking like that makes the whole experience more appealing to me.

And I think also that one of Jim’s goals in life is to replace the entire web page experience with an immersive virtual reality experience.

In his mind, we would virtually see, hear, touch, and smell things in other parts of the world at any time. We could also interact and change them at will. It would, in essence, be the same thing as a web page, but about a million times more interactive.

I think that’s enough for my first blog comment. Cya

Comment by Michael Walton — May 25, 2006 @ 3:52 pm
I do think you get it. It’s not just about having a spot on the web. It’s about existing on the web. It’s not your HTML or Javascript or URL on the internet. It is you on the internet. It’s writing history as it happens. “What were Jim Parker and Michael Walton talking about May 25, 2006?”. That means we have a history. We have a link - and it is provable.

One year from now, will I remember that on this day I helped save one of my company’s partners $1.2 million? Probably not – because I haven’t written it down (well, now it’s written down isn’t it– bad example ). But will I be able to know, in an instant that I had a conversation with Michael Walton about blogging - because it is now written down - forever.

And thanks for contributing.

Comment by Jim Parker — May 25, 2006 @ 6:13 pm