Years ago, when the blahg here first started, I had a reasonably robust readership of people with whom I was personally acquainted; that is, people I knew, had met face-to-face, considered friends in the conventional sense before there was any online means of connection.
Of course, in those days several of those people had blogs of their own, so they spent some time in the blogosphere as well, and having a "community" of sorts was more easily achieved.
This was before many of them had children.
While I imagine there may still be some page views I get from people in that category, the comments I get (indicating those who are willing to identify that they have read a post) come from people in another category: people I "know" only from me having read their blogs; they're "online friends" of a sort. They are people who, because they engage in the same activity, understand the modest pleasure from getting a comment that indicates someone at least read what you wrote. Whether it was fully appreciated is secondary to the fact someone did more than click over to your page, glance at it, then hit the Back button because it wasn't what they were looking for.
Those people I knew who had blogs have not completely forsaken the internet, by the way. They merely moved over to the convenience of Facebook, with its built-in audience. They're not really writing in the same way, but perhaps with kids that's no longer an option.
Of course, in those days several of those people had blogs of their own, so they spent some time in the blogosphere as well, and having a "community" of sorts was more easily achieved.
This was before many of them had children.
While I imagine there may still be some page views I get from people in that category, the comments I get (indicating those who are willing to identify that they have read a post) come from people in another category: people I "know" only from me having read their blogs; they're "online friends" of a sort. They are people who, because they engage in the same activity, understand the modest pleasure from getting a comment that indicates someone at least read what you wrote. Whether it was fully appreciated is secondary to the fact someone did more than click over to your page, glance at it, then hit the Back button because it wasn't what they were looking for.
Those people I knew who had blogs have not completely forsaken the internet, by the way. They merely moved over to the convenience of Facebook, with its built-in audience. They're not really writing in the same way, but perhaps with kids that's no longer an option.
Kids have a way of messing up people's lives. Facebook is for people who have no writing skills, or who have no time for "real" relationships. ;-)
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