Ask this question to any of your blogger friends and they will share a variety of reasons - some do it for sharing opinions, for the love of writing, for money and then there are souls who blog just because everyone around them is blogging.
Finance blogger Ranjan asked Amit Varma the same question and his answer was "Guilt"
When I wake up late and log on to my site meter and see that a couple of thousand people have come to my blog while I've sleeping, it makes me feel guilty that I've let them down. So I blog on.That's so true. RSS is yet to go mainstream and a good number of your regular visitors will actually visit the blog website to read the new stories. Using Bloglines or Google Reader is just too geek and they prefer the old-school method of reading websites - type the URL in the address bar and hit go.
And when you build a good reader base who check your site every morning (or several times a day), it becomes your moral responsibility not to disappoint them. They are visiting your blog site with an expectation of finding new content but when there's none, some level of disappointment will be there.
That's where the Blogging pressure sets in.
Reader Comments
Hi Amit
nice thought, i want to share why i started off blogging: As a faculty, i have seen many elderly profs and the likes becoming tech-ignorant as they get older and some times being proud of their ignorance. I did not wanted to be like that.Hence I started off blogging for telling the students about it with some kind of authority.. slowly the blog got a life of its own and i am just nurturing it...
cheers
Written on 29/1/07 11:25 PM
I started blogging to hopefully share my interests with others. However, I do think I have fallen into the group of those that feel like they are depriving the world of something when they aren't updating their blog. Ultimately I can say that my mission in blogging is not monetary, but more an informative purpose.
F.Y.I.
I was wondering why my previous comments weren't posted. Turns out that the login function on the comment system isn't working here for "New Bloggers" anyhow. Only after I am logged in to blogger.com does the comment allow me to post. Might be worth looking into Amit.
Written on 30/1/07 11:50 AM
moral responsibility? what the hell are you talking about...
Written on 30/1/07 4:55 PM
wow....i am amazed by the answer "guilt" ....I blog for sheer thrill of blogging...
Its good to put your views some place, where everybody can know what you have been thinking...and in doing that if you can help somebody...Its just an added bonus :)
The power behind blogging cannot be underestimated...
cheers
draun
Written on 30/1/07 6:28 PM
Hi Amit,
Great to see how people started blogging. Although I knew about blogs for quite some time but never had any inclination towards it and never tried to understand what a blog is. Until one day while surfing the TV channels I bumped into your interview in CNBC. Thats when I actually started thinking of blogging. Initially money was a factor but luckily after I started blogging, the topic which I chose was of my interest Mobile User Experience and India Mobile VAS Industry.
I have been seriously blogging now and am happy to see it has helped me in my overall personal growth. Through my blog I have been able to meet like minded people and hence has benefited a lot.
Thanks to you.
Keep Blogging !
Written on 30/1/07 10:00 PM
For me , i want to share everything that i know about computers .
Written on 30/1/07 11:04 PM
The other takeaways for me from the interview was:
1. Enjoy Blogging! Otherwise don't do it.
2. Respect your readers.
Guess emulating guys like you is a major attraction for millions of newbie bloggers like me.
Thanks for the one answer. I'm looking for more from u!!
Written on 31/1/07 9:49 PM