Friday 16 February 2007

A readership dilemma

When I first decided to start a blog, it was so clear in my mind about the things that I intend to put into words. I knew exactly what I wanted to blog about and I wanted (and still want) to tell the whole world about my zewtpinions. I actually sent an e-mail to my junk forwards recipient list announcing to the whole about the launch of my blog hoping that they will pay my blog a visit. 3 things happened thereafter:

1. 90% of the stuff I intend to blog has not appeared in my blog (yet?);
2. 5% (a guesstimate) from my junk forwards recipient visited my blog; and
3. 65% (a guesstimate) of the people who reads my blog are friends whom I made in the blogosphere.

As of today, I think I have between 25 – 30 friends (yes, you are all my friends although I may not met seen some of you in person yet) who read my blog regularly (thank you thank you). If you ask me, I sure want the number to grow. And of course, I sincerely hope those who have been reading will continue to drop by. That’s for me.

For my good friend, Economist, he has a blog but there has only been 2 entries (I think) since its incarnation. I am dead sure he has a lot of things to blog but his concern is that there may not be any reader. At this juncture, allow me to highlight 2 comments posted in my blog earlier:

Flaminglambo – I don’t give a rat’s ass (author: a pretty small ass by the way) that nobody reads it.

Bongkerz – I think most of us started without thinking whether people will read our blog or not.

The above 2 comments certainly contradicts my intention to start a blog, cos I really wanted people to read it. So there are mainly 2 species of bloggers… one that doesn’t really care about readership (duh…)… and one that cares about readership (double duh….) hehe... Crap aside, I am of the zewtpinion that readership depends on the things that one wishes to blog about.


Kenny Mah’s left a comment saying that some blogs are password protected so as to restrict readership to only a certain group of individuals. Well, guess these are the people who don’t really care about readership. In fact, they have gone the extra mile to ensure that there is no readership. Probably such blogs are too personal, probably includes some dark secrets that one just needed to type it down, probably includes some sick fantasy. One thing for sure, they do not wish their blogs to be read, and I am not one of them.

Naturally, the legion of bloggers would prefer readership. Why? Like I said earlier, I wanted (and still want) to tell the whole world about my zewtpinions. I want to share what I think with people (I know, sounded damn corny right?). More importantly, I wanna know whether they agree or disagree with me. In order to achieve that, I guess I would like to have people reading my blog, honestly speaking.

Of course, that’s like too damn serious right? I am sure we need a break sometimes, which is why I also blog to share about morons whom I encountered and perhaps some humour to laugh about and some interesting twisted love stories. I am sure you don’t mind reading those, right?

So Economist (and others who finally found time and topic but concern about readers), whether or not readership is important depends very much on what you wanted to blog about. Trust me, if your blog is interesting enough (and it doesn’t need to be extravagant English), readers will turn out. So fear not, blog away!!




Allow me to digress a little… There’s actually a real life situation, a reader of my blog, a fellow blogger whose name I shall not mention, that her aunt accidentally stumbled upon her blog and she freaked out. Her reason …”I do not wish to be naked in front of my relative”… no no no, there’re no naked pictures of her there you pervert! It’s just metaphor. So this person wanna restrict one reader from her blog but she can’t and at the same time, she loves blogging. What’s the solution? She is still trying to figure it out. Anyone here wanna help her out?

Last but not least, in our pursuit of more readers, do we blog about what we intend to blog about? Or we blog according to our readers’ interest? … now, that’s a blog for another time...

19 comments:

rainbow angeles said...

Haha... zewt is the confucious...

With time, you'll learn what you feel like blogging... and oh boy, you will learn alotta things if you get to know more bloggers personally... I can attest to that :) Maybe she would like to consider changing her blog's URL?

You know, your ques about do we blog according to our readers' interest or do we blog what we intend to blog, when I first started my blog, I had this feeling that I'm some kind of a magazine's editor, every other day must have some 'publication' haha... *dejavu*

Maverick SM said...

Welcome to blogging, Zewt.

When I started blogging, I had rarely 10 visitors and for more than 2 years, the statistic shows not more than 30 visitors.

Last year was an improvement and of course I felt motivated with readers and comments.

I agree that bloggers need readers and commenters. However, tho' we blog to express ourselves, the joy is being able to make friends in this cyberworld. That's the thing that gets us going.

Enjoy yourself in this borderless and infinite world.

Huei said...

You're doing a great job, keep it up!
i guess everyone has different "wants" when reading a blog, people rarely reads, most just want pure pictures, but i like your blog cos there are stuff that i can relate to, most of them, even this!
i started without caring about readers or it's publicity, but after forever, i now want readers!! hehe so next time hypnotize your readers to read mine too! =P

Anonymous said...

wah zewt now i am FAMOUS hahah....actually my blog still has 1 post...have not uploaded the 2nd one which is still in MS WORD...

in my opinion...if i write about my life ONLY like a diary..i dont think it will interest much ppl...but contrary to that some personal diaries are quite popular eg. kenny sia.......

but i guess if its about something more general eg complaints, general knowledge and etc...these will benefit your readers...

anyway like i mention to you last time..assuming i dont leave a comment with my blogger account there is no other effective way to get ppl to read your blog i mean unless you are being mention by your other blogger frens...

but i guess at the end of the day...most ppl treat it as a place to rant and they dont care if ppl read it or not...of course if there are fine and dandy..if none BIG DEAL right.......

A Black Cat said...

I first started to blog wanting to have LOTS of readers. Mostly people I don't know, whom I can cajole into visiting my blog by the sheer magic of my words and share my secrets with.

The initial madness has cooled. The blog became instead a tool to update my friends with recent happenings. Readers I don't know, they're welcome but I no longer want to be "famous". (I know the blogosphere spells it as femes but I never get why) I know that if my readership expands I will have to think about issues like privacy. And I'm fine with the way things are now, and how my readership will grow at its own pace over time.

Anyhow, my stats show that The Aunt has not visited the blog since the 12th. Probably a month-long hiatus is in order to make sure that the coast is clear. (And I've registered a Wordpress.com blog as a backup plan.) Welcome any other suggestions though!

Anonymous said...

Well, zewt, I think you're right in saying everyone begins a blog with a different motive, though they may not know it at the time.

I am definitely keeping my own blog public as I want people to read it, especially new people, strangers I've not met before. What better way to meet like-minded folks? (My real-life friends, if one could call them that [ for aren't bloggers real-life too?], tend not to be too curious on what's new since they get more than enough of me in real-time anyway.)

But at the same time, there's a fear that hey, what if I say something that I'd regret later. Or someone gets offended? Or some small detail gets blown out of proportion?

Those are worries many bloggers share I'm sure. My solution is to keep it to what I do want to say, and say publicly. The nasty little secrets I can keep to myself and my pen-and-paper journal. (Who knows, after my death, they may yet cause many a scandal...)

the witch's broo said...

as you can see, zewt, i am quite anonymous, in the sense that i am blogging sans my real name/identity.
Nobody...but nobody knows who I am. That is why I can "talk" quite openly, though not entirely so lest i blow my cover, about some very personal and private things.
so why do I blog using a nick? well, because I need a channel to purge the demons in me. a catharsis. a therapy of sorts.
i am quite a private person. so many personal, emotional things i have kept to myself. dont want to burden family and friends.
i used to keep a diary. but cyberspace is more fun.
and by the way, zewt.I do have another blog. not anonymous. more serious stuff. the side that people know me to be. (i be better at deception and do 5Xmom,huh? she pretends to write manglish when i know she has an excellent command/use of english.)
Me - Ms jekyll and Ms Hyde? what do you think.
no no no....zewt.I am not a mental case.....

Anonymous said...

P.S. Your post about the guy with the 1,000/256 blogs in his reading list is making so much more sense to me now as I'm discovering more and more interesting blogs from one link to the next. How to catch up? How to read them all?

(And to think I made fun of my mom and sis of their Korean/Filipino teledrama addiction. Aiyo, aiyo.)

Weig said...

Blog:

Wikipedia definition:
"a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order"
(very cold and objective definition)

Princeton definition:
"a shared on-line journal where people can post diary entries about their personal experiences and hobbies"
(Note the word 'shared' - Princetonians probably walk around their campus naked)

Mr. Monkeysuit definition:
"Blog - bloody dog"

Blogscanada definition:
"So what is a weblog, anyway? Generally speaking, it's an online journal comprised of links and postings in reverse chronological order (I sense plagiarism here), meaning the most recent posting appears at the top of the page. As Meg Hourihan, co-founder of Pyra Labs, the blogging software company acquired by Google in February 2003, has noted, weblogs are “post-centric” -- the posting is the key unit -- rather than “page-centric,” as with more traditional websites."
(wha?)

Marketing Terms dot Com definition:
"A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person's life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people.

People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems... (blah blah blah blah blah)"

(thought definitions are supposed to be one-liners.)

Cirnelle's definition:
"You. Online."

BaitiBadarudin said...

guess it depends on whether you want it to be a personal journal or a popular web-azine.
gratifying to have readers tho.
Happy Holidays!

Seaqueen said...

Blog on Zewt...as long it's worth reading there will be readers..

zewt said...

angel - the person whose name i didnt mention left a comment... seems like she has started a new blog. as for the i-am-an-editor-in-chief feeling, ya definitely. and now, i try to post only an entry a day, though i want to do more than that. blogging has been... electrifying.

maverickSM - welcome to my blog. you have got a fantastic blog going yourself, and i am sure you have more than 30 readers now. indeed, making friends in the blogosphere is a good feeling, what more when you meet friends who share the same passion. i am looking at writing about the stuff you write pretty soon... do it subtly... haha

huei - thanks for your compliment. note that i've linked my blog to yours, hopefully your blog will have more traffic. cant wait for my blog to turn 90 days so that i can do the PPP thingy. and i am glad to know you can relate to my entries.

Economist - what you said actually made me think about something... i wonder, why do so many freaking ppl leave comments in blogs like kennysia... i guess they want kennysia to visit their site and give them a traffic boost...hmmmm...

june - hahahaha... the sheer magic of your words eh? and now, how you wish you could use such witchcraft to cajole just one individual NOT to read your blog. angel suggested you change your url... which is not a bad idea really...

kenny mah - i think we cant be too bothered about ppl getting offended or having things blown out of proportion. if such things were to happen... it could happen anytime, like in our daily speech... if we live like in such a manner, it will be a fearful life. ya, i am getting loads of interesting blog too, think my read list is going to hit 100 soon.

witch's broo - which one is the other blog? curious to see the witch's broo (ms hyde version)... or this ms hyde version and the other is jekyll?

cirnell - hahahaha... after all the super definition you give us... you could only come up with 2 words?

queenB - i think somewhere in between will be nice. happy holidays too!

jessica - thanks, i guess this one not even worth a read... but worth a comment eh? hehe...

Anonymous said...

enjoy the ride dude~~~ :D

Anonymous said...

hey, get a chatbox la....

Eli James said...

Lol. Yeah, a chatter box does wonders.

It's refreshing to meet someone who makes frens online. I've blogged for 4 years and most of the people i know online, i know in the real life. In, of course, direct contrast to you - which sounds so sad on my end...:S

But keep up the good work ... i'm hooked to your blog! Besides a Cbox (so kepo ppl spamming your comments can spam you in other ways *evil grin*), try to get a customized theme - it works wonders since blog design is identity *plus i hate black*

;P

Ignore me.

Anonymous said...

I blog whenever I see something wrong, or something that I know I can make fun of.

What can I say? I love to humor myself at others' expense, especially when it involves the government.

Purple~MushRooM said...

What can i say?
I have 2 blogs... I started to blog abt my life in year 2005. It is a password protected blog. I only write to express my feelings when I'm feeling down. Yes, I am a person who suffers from depression. My blog is the only way I could express myself. It was a sad, sad, blog. That's why it's not meant for public reading. It's too personal.

Then, this mth itself, I started to make a change. I started Purple-Mushroom. I want to be a happier person and to blog abt happy stuffs. But I don't really care if there are any readers at all. I just want to express my thoughts and it made me smile when I read my own blog. :)

Blogs... there are no hard rules to it. It doesn't matter what you write, it doesn't matter if there are any readers at all. If you feel happy blogging, what the heck... just do it!

zewt said...

freelunch2020 - dunno how to get la... teach me la...

dienasty - wait till freelunch teaches me how to get one, then perhaps i will put it up. but dont la flood it... thanks for the compliment but i dont think i can help with the black screen thing. but i am trying to get a logo done... hehe...

aput - yo bro! yea, i know all about you making humour of our government. you keep it up... and hope you can log on to blogspot from pasir gudang soon.

purple-mushroom - sad to say, we cant really adopt the 'just do it' culture here in msia... might land us into serious trouble. have to choose the right word most of the times. eh... gimme the password to that secret blog la... can ah? i wont tell your husband...hahahahaha!

Purple~MushRooM said...

Hmm... you're right. I almost forgot about the Jeff Ooi blogging case. Guess Malaysians can't really blog what's in their mind.

Abt the password to the other blog... better not. Don't want you to shed any tears reading abt my life... hahaha.