Oh Blogs.

Here's an article from the New York Times on the subject of blogs which I think raises some good points. Most blogs die quickly and have little to no audience. Many blogs are started with some perverse desire to become rich, be it through ads or book deals, an idea which I find to be generally hilarious.

I would like to add that most blogs are poorly written, generate no real content and serve only as sites to re-post "viral" videos. These are traits which I admit this very site does dabble in from time to time.

The New York Times article has forced me to reflect on my own blog. Live Like Dirt started on August 19th, 2008 and this will be 522nd post. I usually manage at least one post a day, and over the last month I've posted about 3 times per day. During final exams the posting generally slows to a halt, but this is what I expected from the get go. Initially I had a readership consisting of 10-20 individual hits a day. More recently this site attracts an average of 54 unique visitors a day (with an average of 108 page loads daily). Some days have seen over 80 unique visits.

There are an even smaller handful of people who comment, most of whom will read this post. Yet on average most posts go without comment, which I'm fine with as I don't tend to travel the Interwebz posting on every blog I read. Although I do wish people would argue with me more. Generally my readers tend to agree with me which either means they are highly intelligent or mindless sheep.

Some of my posts have been better than others. I rather enjoy writing about hominid species and believe those posts to be among my better blogs. In an attempt to avoid sounding whiny I often attempt to make those I disagree with (ie. Oprah, McCarthy, Creationists, Conspiracy theorists, etc.) objects of ridicule while also pointing out their logical inconsistencies. In doing so I often engage in a logical fallacy of own known as poisoning the well. I'm okay with this because I'd very much like to see my enemies to drink from a poison well.

The blog where I argued about priestly child rape was probably a good example of one of my weaker structured arguments. It was written around 6:30 am after a sleepless night and I think that was rather apparent as there was no consistent thread tying the piece together. Thus the argument which arose over this subject began a tiresome back and forth which was messy, poorly written on both accounts, and finally went no where. But I don't intend to delete it, nor pretend it has not happened, as another commenter suggested. It's kept as a reminder that I must sharpen my writing skills and method of attack if it is to be effective.

Returning to the New York Times article there seems to be one standard of the failed blog writer which I feel does not apply to my own blog (which I alluded to in the opening paragraph). It appears as though many bloggers start out with the ambition to get a large readership, sell adds and get a book deal. I've never been able to fool myself into such a ludicrous idea. I started this blog just to write stuff, with little to no delusions of grandeur. That's just what I gonna keep on doing.

What do the next 522 posts hold? More of the same.