To Blog or Not to Blog?

I have found plenty of evidence that I am not the only one asking the question, to blog or not to blog? The underlying question to ask yourself is this: Would you rather be unread or unwritten? The jury is still out for me, but I am attempting to make sense of the tech bubble in the meantime. I guess you could say I am still trying this whole "bloggin' thing" on for size.

In a sense, blogging seems to be all about instant gratification. Instead of going through the traditional route of becoming published, one can instantly post writings on the world wide web with an audience of potentially millions. (In reality, of course, the blogosphere is much smaller than that). Needless to say, it's not very gratifying if no one actually reads your blog, is it? I ran across an interesting article today by Nicholas Carr that speaks to the question of the unread blogger. In Carr's tale, the common blogger, or "peasant", represents the "powerless" while the A-list bloggers, or "royals", are the "powerful". Carr suggests that the idea of the blogosphere being

"open and democratic and egalitarian... in contrast and in opposition to the controlled and controlling mass media,"

is an "innocent fraud" perpetuated by both the powerful and the powerless alike. For those of us who are not A-bloggers, just one comment on a post is enough to keep us going. Pathetic, isn't it? Perhaps there are those that use blogging as a means of personal expression, a creative outlet so to speak, that does not necessarily seek a response from a reader. However, aren't we all looking for personal validation in some way? And have we, the peasant boys and girls, found it?

Here's a funny cartoon I found on Geek and Poke that highlights Carr's article...

Only What's Written Can Be Unread

By the way, I've found there is at least one down side to automated syndication (aka blogging). Since the process if so fast and easy, almost too easy, the blogger may not go through the same editing process required by the traditional method. The end result is rushing into a post without proper proofreading, editing, mulling over, etc. The end result of that is saying something stupid you can't take back.