Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Old MacDonald

Most of us who are over fifty and grew up in the US are familiar with the kiddie song, "Old MacDonald Had a Farm". After talking to a few friends, I have a new refrain - "Here a blog, there a blog, everywhere a blog, blog".

Yes, it seems like just about everyone is a "blogger". Everyone writes all of a sudden, which has got to be good for improving writing skills in this country. But writers need readers, and therein lies the rub. It takes a lot of time to "blog", on top of working, parenting, grandparenting, and taking care of Mom and Dad, not to mention housework, yardwork, and occasionally catching up on the news. Just where do people find the time to write in their own blogs, and then read fifty others, just so fifty others will read theirs?

I don't think anyone reads my blog. OK, I take that back. I do know that a few people read my blog. But most of my readers (save one faithful twenty-something blogger friend) are over fifty, and do not write blogs themselves, so I do not get feedback on what I write, which I must admit all writers crave, even me. For some reason "Blogger" has made it difficult to post comments for non-bloggers, as most of the time non-blogger comments do not post but get stuck in cyberspace. (Comments made by those who have a blog on Blogger get posted immediately and easily.) Since there is no easy way to contact anyone at Blogger, at least no easy way that I have found, it is impossible to report the problem, let alone get it fixed. I have a sneaking suspicion that the folks who maintain Blogger want to keep it that way, so that more people join Blogger and set up blogs so that they can not only read other people's blogs, but comment on them. And soon enough, guess what? These new Blogger users are setting up their own blog site. (Yes, indeedy, this is what happens. Its contagious.) More blogs created, more hits for Blogger's blog site, more advertising money for Blogger. (Getting an account on Blogger is free, so they must make money someplace, and I'm guessing its in advertising.)

So there you have it. Soon blogging will be as common as newspaper columnists once were. Move over Dear Abby. The new generation is coming through.

No comments:

Post a Comment