Comments on: What’s This Blogging Business?

By: emonome | Digg-ing For Eyeballs

emonome | Digg-ing For Eyeballs — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:15:21 +0000

[...] Couple of weeks ago I’d talked about not getting enough traffic - meaning really not enough traffic - but did talk about the realization that my blog is not at all mass-appealing, which in turn made me feel a lot better. I am happy to have a smaller group of very important people visiting my blog whose opinions, thoughts, and voices mean a lot to me. It was my ‘why am I blogging?’ moment of clarity, if I may. Seth Godin reflected on that today. I don’t look for validation…but I guess I just did. [...]

By: Emon

Emon — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:36:40 +0000

Thank you, Paul! Coming from you, it’s a badge of honor.

By: Paul Levinson

Paul Levinson — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:28:02 +0000

Emon, you have been among the most valuable guides to the world of new new media I have been fortunate enough to meet. Keep up the fine work. I’ve never come across a post or photo by you that I didn’t enjoy reading or seeing.

By: Emon

Emon — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 05:49:45 +0000

Jim, I treasure those moments when people drop by and leave their thoughts…or just drop by.

Dee: It’s very cool that you’ve started the personal blog again. Happy I had something meaningful to tell you. I’d recently read about Douglas Kirkland, the famous photographer, now in his 70s. He says that even after all these decades of taking countless pictures, he still can’t wait to go out and shoot every day. Now that’s love.

By: Dee

Dee — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:48:45 +0000

You know my ‘fuck this shit’ moment wasn’t long ago when I decided that I’m gonna drop blogozine for something that is more “Me”. My problem wasn’t that traffic wasn’t coming in nor readers not burning my feeds… but things got to the point where it felt like work that I didn’t want to do.

I started with personal blogging for about a year.. then I decided I wanted to go pro. You know only few few bloggers got away with blogging personally and professionally at the same time. and by personally I mean blogging about whatever may come to their minds at the moment, including what they had for dinner.. and still are classified as A-list bloggers. So I had to create something that would please more people. I wanted to be an A lister at some point.. but not anymore.

The best advice I ever got was from you Emon, when you told me to write for one. That’s exactly what I’m doing right now, and it feels great

By: Suldog

Suldog — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:26:48 +0000

Yeah, I sometimes get the “fuck this shit!” moments, but then I think about the whole slew of nice people who drop by regularly, just to see what I might have written, and that re-energizes me.

By: Emon

Emon — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:12:31 +0000

Thanks, man! Always always happy to find kindred spirits. There are days when I’m sure everything is figured out and then there are days when I question my sanity for being that confident. You’ve nailed it with two words: existential anxiety.

Here’s to finding more of us and doing our own things.

By: tw

tw — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:28:57 +0000

Emon, just thought I’d drop a line to let you know we’re out here, man. I catch your blog occasionally through my subscription to your feed via google reader.

I’ve been trying to get myself to blog regularly for over a year now but I always hit the wall. Other shit - life - always seems to get in the way. Your blog is an inspiration and lets me know that kindred spirits are out there, looking at the world with curiosity and originality and recording bits and pieces of it for the rest of us. That’s always comforting and seeing your posts always puts some of my existential anxiety at ease.

You talked about trying to get more serious about professionalizing the blog - dialing in on one specific subject area and going in depth. And that can be useful and profitable, or so folks say, but dude, I like your style of blogging on emonome. And your photography is dope too. This style of blog is way more personal and honest, and consequently more engaging, authentic and ultimately much more interesting. Of course, I don’t dig every single post, but why should I? It’s the occasional gems you share that make it worthwhile and that’s how it should be. Nothing takes the fun out of blogging like trying to please everyone. Keep on doing what you’re doing.

If anything, I take away from this post a renewed faith in the idea that when it comes to blogging, doing your own thing is also doing the right thing. Thanks for the refreshment.