Thing 4 update

Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I clicked on every link in the sidebar at the 23 Things Blog. Yup, that's right, I looked at every single 23 Things blog at Oxford. It was an interesting experience.

Common themes included not having enough time 'for this blogging thing', that RSS readers take too much time to get through, or just plain not seeing the point of some 'Things' at all. There were also a few people deeply concerned about privacy issues, especially when it came to photographs.

It's raining...er...blogs

There are a lot of people taking part in 23 Things. No really, even more than that. I've barely had time to work my way through the 'a's and the 'w's (I tend to start at the top, realise that I always start at the top then skip to the bottom. I may never get to read anything beginning with 'm')

Trying to read them all will be impossible, but a quick sampling has proved interesting. It's striking how many very short entries there are, where people have just noted "this is my Thing" then moved on. Then there are some very long entries from people who have experience with blogs and are therefore willing to talk for longer.

Personally, I love blogs, although I find Blogger very un-instinctive after several years of using Livejournal. One of my big incentives for participating in 23 Things is to get the hang of Blogger better, as I'd like to have a personal/professional blog I can direct people to, rather than my personal/writing one. I find other people's lives fascinating, so I subscribe to lots of personal blogs as well as a few 'professional' ones. The one thing I don't do is subscribe to any 'news' blogs, since I have news feeds on my iGoogle page that I use to catch the headlines.

As with any piece of work, a blog is usually only as good as the amount of effort a person is willing to put into it. If you're willing to write regularly, interestingly and entertainingly, engage with your commenters and go out to comment on other people's posts, a blog can be a successful and lively place to be. If all you do is drop a one line post in every now and again, it's probably not going to be. I'd also say that the commenting is essential. The key with Web 2.0 technologies is engagement - if you're not prepared to go out into the wider blogosphere, you can't really expect people to come to you. And if you're not providing them with content when they do click the link, why would they come back? With all these programmes, you have to decide what you want to get out of it, and how much work you're prepared to do to make it happen.

Now, I'm off to do just that before I get even more philosophical about it...