People sometimes wonder what the motivation for blogging is. When I think about it, I’ve been doing this thing before ‘blogging’ was cool (on devdev.org, then BusinessBits) and I ask myself: Why keep doing it, Devin?
Money
I quickly snap back at myself “it’s all about the benjamins, baby!” I don’t mean to brag or anything but I just received my first TLA payment. It came to a grand total of $3.08. Now are things making more sense? I’m in it for the money…
Women
Oh, and the women. I’m convinced that Sara is my biggest fan (rightfully so). Joe visits sometimes too (yet never comments, jerk). Without all my adoring female fans out there I’d have little motivation to blog. Without that constant desire to impress them, you (the reader) would have missed out on so much. Like that one time I “broke” the story about Google’s SMS Terms of Service. Yeah, they can log your messages. Oh, or that one (actually 11) time I said MySpace sucks. Without my intellect and insight you may never have realized it…
Fame
Scrivs really put it best: “I’m fucking internet famous…” Seriously, I look at my number of subscribers and realize that 200 people have found this site a worthy read (every time I post I wonder why that number hasn’t yet dropped). Not to mention the hundreds of MySpace users that love me for writing about MySpace and thinking I can somehow fix their login. Oh, and the dozens of indians and O’Reilly employees that have visited my free FIRO-B tool and figured that reading my description of the scores is too much to grasp on their own. I’m really famous because these sample people decided to copy, paste their score, and leave a comment asking for my personal opinion. First, go take the assessment then come back and read on…
I’ve compiled all their questions and here it is: you all have personal needs including affection, control, and intimacy. Sometimes your numbers are high, signifying a high need. Sometimes they’re low, suggesting the opposite. Take the results with a grain of salt and then compare with friends, co-workers, peers. When you’ve done that go ahead and PayPal $5 to devin at devinreams dot com. That’s my consultancy fee. Thanks in advance!
Recognition
There’s nothing better than waking up one morning and seeing that someone has linked to you. I was especially excited when my little (but bigger) brother put me in his blog. Look, now the circle is complete. The internet is great at making circles. I’ve even made a circle with Tom Peters! I guess I just really like it when people give credit when it’s due… which it’s not in my case… so I guess I just really like credit. In fact, I was left a comment the other day recognizing my blog and how cool it is. The comment instructed me to email him with my name and email… no, recognition doesn’t mean you have to know my name.
So, why the hell do you blog? Or why do you read them? Or mine? Feel free to answer any of those questions in the comments.
Update: Within 10 minutes I was ‘BlogTipped’ by Diane. See? There’s two reasons I blog right there…
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The Women and Fame – right?
Exactly. ;-)
Being fairly new to the blogosphere, I ask myself the question all the time. I have none of the great resons listed above, but i do get a certain sense of satisfaction and elief that my ideas are out of my head and now on pape…ummm screens. I don’t – at the moment – really mind whose reading it, as long as thsoe who do get something out of it, and of course, it’s always fantastic when someone comments. My question is, how long before your addicted to stats and comments?!
– J
Haha, the addiction is almost instant. I check my stats more than 3 times a day.. that includes Mint and Feedburner. I have a RSS feed for my technorati links to my sites. As always, comments are great too!
Gee that is addictive, perhaps you might seek some help D. I check my stats for my main projects – http://www.itsartdammit.com & http://www.peoplelikeuscollective.com almost once a day and the most important thing I look for is WHERE the people came from. Incidentally, in case you’re wondering I came to your site from Noah the dork. I’d say we’re friends but he really dislikes Australia, so psh!
Hey, I like to make sure I know everything going on with my site. As far as the referral, I figured as much. When I saw your site and saw Noah’s next to Seth Godin I started to get suspicious. ;)
A. I am your biggest fan and always will be
B. I knew all along that you were in this for the women…me and Courtney, what more do you need?!
C. MySpace doesn’t suck…I love it. And for the first time ever, I don’t care what you think!!
I do too comment. Witness my first one, right here! Now that I know you be smack talking I’ll make a more regular habit of dropping by. Well, that and the fact that I now know you’re completely loaded. $3.08?? That’s a feast at MickeyD’s.
I was wondering when you two would stop by. Goodness, I’m such a lucky guy…
Joe, next time I’m in your neck of the woods.. McDs is on me. ;)
If you build it, they will come.
For future reference, I like chicken mcnuggets.
The whole thing with blogging is to build up a reputation of unique, original and valuable content. You have to find an audience who likes what you’re writing and reads what you have to say. You have to find some topic that is unique to you, a different perspective and hold it. If you have very insightful thoughts about certain things that are going on in the world or on the Internet, you’ll go pretty far.
I agree entirely, Andrew. I try my best to be insightful…