State of the Blog Address

My fellow Americans ... -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
In January 2007, I had a special blog article touting Strange Fascination's 2nd anniversary. SF just turned 4, and I feel the need to honor the occasion but more as a formality than a celebration this time around.

LESS FLIM FLAM
For a while, I sent out a "latest blog" email to a list of friends and associates to get an audience. What I noticed is that people would respond as friends, only because I sent a tickler -- they didn't really care to check back for the content alone. Getting past hurt feelings, I have to admit that my blog tends toward nerdy, iconoclastic (and porn-deficient) topics. I still would prefer to draw readers based on content. I've suspended the reminder notes, except for once in a very blue moon. "Ain't to proud to beg", as the song says but when begging doesn't work it's time to give it a rest.

DEAD WOOD
When I wrote two years ago, I was all enthused with creating an on-line ezine -- one with syndicated content, that would draw people far and wide. But there are and were several problems with that idea. A lot of syndicators saddle you with site-cluttering advertisements in exchange for the free content. Many of the Amazine articles were infomercials in disguise. Another site that gave me free web hosting changed its business model without telling me, and the links all went dead. This leads me to a 3rd topic ...

WORK , WORK and MORE WORK
To do justice to a web site, you really need to monitor it constantly. I see how ‘real’ publications need an entire staff. Here but some of the things to gobble up your time: article content, artwork, advertising, promotion, legal/copyright issues, fact checking and even marketing research. (Each Google ad is assigned a channel and these need to be compared if time allows). At one time I was manically writing 3 blogs and finally became aware of the impossibility of that.

CONTENT
On this blog, I’ve hacked away much of the dead wood, and am considering even more of a spare look (less ad space, more blog). My topics have become more mundane in the last couple of years. I actually like off-beat, weird stuff but nobody else does – that leaves me with a lot more of politics, movie reviews and technical articles. For those with an artsy bent, a poetry link has been added. Maybe the muse of weirdness has left me but I think it’s more a response to the responses I’ve gotten. I love science and philosophy but maybe those topics just find a more receptive audience at a Mensa meeting or a UU Sunday discussion.

I’ve had a couple of long stretches with writer’s block, but my imagination usually finds its way back. All of that said, stay tuned if you’re already here, looking. I might surprise you with something, who knows.

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