Things By Mike

I woke up this morning to discover I’ve been tagged by Lars-Christian on the topic of “Why do you blog?” Good question. It’s something I’ve actually been doing for years before it was even called blogging. I think I created my first web page somewhere around the year 1996. It may have even been earlier than that. Unfortunately I have zero memory capacity, so you’ll just have to live with my rough estimate. Back then there was no Wordpress. There wasn’t a simple admin interface I could log into, click “write post”, type a few lines and click submit. Nope, at that time I was creating everything by hand in notepad, updating my site manually. What a chore that was compared to how ridiculously easy it is today with Wordpress. While the things I’ve written about and published online have changed throughout the years, they’ve always been personal in nature. It was inevitable that once the term blog was coined and the whole blogging phenomenon took off, I’d be a part of it.

So now then, let’s get back to that original question. Just why have I always blogged? Well first and foremost it’s the perfect way for me to share my artwork and music with others. If you’re lucky enough to touch a few people with the things you create, it’s not long before word spreads about your work. Blogging is perhaps one of the most amazing tools for self promotion on the internet today and best of all it doesn’t cost a small fortune! You don’t even have to physically interact with anyone, which works for me. I’m an extremely quiet and timid person by nature, so blogging gives me a voice that I otherwise wouldn’t have.

Second and really just as important as my first reason is the community atmosphere which blogging naturally creates. On any given day I’m likely to stumble onto a blog written by someone whom I can identify with and they just might be half way around the world, or right next door, however there’s a good chance I’d have never discovered them if it weren’t for blogging. Interacting with that person via their blog eventually introduces me to their community of readers and them to mine. Suddenly I’m interacting with an infinite number of people. All of this right from the comfort of my not so comfortable chair.

The third and final reason is I’m a huge geek. I’ve always been fascinated with computers and all the wonderful little things you can do with them. Blogging lets me tinker around and play with new ideas, and just generally release my inner nerd. There’s not a whole lot of other things you can do where being a nerd and a huge geek would be considered cool ;)

So I guess that’s pretty much my answer in one big four paragraph nut shell. If you haven’t fallen asleep by now perhaps you should check this next sentence and see if I’ve tagged YOU to explain why you blog. I shall tag Tim, Krillz and Kali, whom I’ve only just recently discovered. Her writing style is hilarious, so I’d selfishly love to read her answer =)