What’s blogging all about?

Why do we, who do it, do it?

What are the strange attractors involved?

Mel Kaye, the originator of this meme, came up with a number of reasons (and created a rather pleasing acronym in the process):

Therapeutic –- satisfies the need to share experiences
Improvement -– a channel by which change can be effected
Money –- a way to (possibly) make money
Enjoyment -– let’s face it, some find the process to be fun!
Communication -– engaging with family, friends and like-minded people
Altruism –- disseminating information the blogger considers valuable for the good of others
Validation -– feeling valued as a person: the blogger’s ideas, opinions or creativity are worthwhile
Enlightenment -– to grow, to learn, to become more knowledgable

Mel suggested bloggers might like to score themselves using TIMECAVE, rating each item from 0 to 10. I would score quite highly in each sector, I think — though at the moment Money rates only a “0″ for me! And frankly, it would rate low in any case because making money from blogging is very much a secondary, tertiary or even lower personal consideration. Virtually all the others would score a “10″.

**start copying here**

We have a voice;
We must be heard;
Therefore we blog;
Now spread the word!

This meme is based on a recent post that was conducted that asks the question “Why do you Blog?” and the rewrite “Why do you Blog? – Reworked.” The purpose of this meme is to tell our tales by spreading the reasons that we blog to as many sites as possible. We get to explain ourselves, direct traffic to our site and highlight our most important, most representative or most relevant post in an SEO favorable format. This will be a positive experience for everyone who wants to get involved. This will enable you to create a short advertisement for your site that will be spread across the blogesphere; a growing directory of blogs.

This is an open meme. You do not have to be tagged to join in. All you have to do is follow the rules.

Please let me know when you have added your site by leaving a comment on “Complete List” with a link to your post. This will ensure an up-to-date list, giving you even greater distribution. You then have the option of copying the growing list back to your site.

Rules:

1. Create an inventive post title
2. Write a brief introduction to the meme.
3. Copy from “**Start Copying Here**” through “**End Copying Here**”
4. Paste into your post
5. At the end of the “*list*”, before “**End copy here**”, please add your name, site name (with link), a very brief description (2-3 sentences) of why you blog, and your most important, most representative, or most relevant post (with link.)
6. Tag at least 5 others to participate.
7. Leave a comment and a link to your post on “Complete List”

*List*
My name is Mel and I am the Author of Attitude, the Ultimate Power, aka Monday Morning Power. I blog because I am passionate about happiness and living in the moment. I want to spread the concept that we are in control of our own lives and can choose how we act and react. My site is focused on the Pursuit, Capture, Care and Feeding of a Positive Mental Attitude. One of my most representative posts is “Happiness Vs. Human Nature.”

I am Max and I offer weekly articles on MAX. Why do I blog? I do it because I want to share my thoughts with you guys. I present a new and interesting way of transmitting philosophical thoughts: funny, engaging and intriguing! My funniest, yet intriguing, post is “Don’t you just love People?”

I am the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius. My 100% factual blog The Thoughts and Sayings Of Baba Doodlius is intended to educate all of you curious readers about the Truth behind the Great Secrets of the Universe. I have the Truth! Can you handle the Truth? For a sample of my powers of enlightenment, read my Revelation of the terrible secret of Bigfoot, aka Don’t get stepped on.

My name is Amelia and I am the Author of Amel’s Realm. I blog because I need to voice everything in my world so that I won’t explode. My site is all about thoughts, experiences, fears, problems, misadventures, hopes, and dreams of an introverted tropical girl in a foreign land (Finland). One of my most representative posts is On Trust and Relationship.

I am Geoff of Geoffandcarley.com and I blog for reasons as diverse and as fickle as my moods. Mostly I blog because I’m firmly convinced I’ve figured a few things out and that the world will benefit from my experience the same way I’ve benefited from others’ experiences. One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time.

My name is Judy and I am the Author of ~~Sugar Queen’s Dream~~. I blog because it’s cheap therapy and I have something to say. I feel my most powerful post is called “The Myths of Smoking……”

My name is Sindi and I have written a blog entitled Life is a roller coaster!. My blog is based on the ups and downs of everyday life. I started blogging because I was going through some hard times and I wanted to meet new people to talk to. I like to write and was hoping people might enjoy reading what I have to say. I think the most inspiring post I have written to date is We Effect So Many.

People call me the Midgetmanofsteel (although I’m neither a midget, nor made of steel). I am the sole author the blog Mental Poo: a mostly true and humorous account of things that have happened to me, are happening to me, or are just filling my head and taking up valuable space where images of women should be. You can get a sneak peek into my mess of a brain by reading “Raisins are People” – a true account of my son’s first field trip.

My name is Sandee and I have a blog called Comedy Plus. My blog is just for fun, and I started it to poke fun about everyday life. My reason for blogging is to have fun and meet new friends. I have done both beyond my wildest dreams. I have posted lots of jokes, but when ask what my favorite joke is, I always pick Anger Management.

My name is Lynda. I blog to as a way to expose my writings and to spread my knowledge on the subject of love. My primary blog (I have 15) is lynda’s loft. My favorite piece would be I LOVE….. I have over 300 original poems and posts dealing with the wonderful and painful world of love. I love love!

My name Adrian, although most of you probably know me as the Mighty Genie King. I am the author First Time Dad. I started blogging as a way to document my growing up pains as my wife and I raise our daughter. I hope that one day my daughter will be able to look at this and get an idea what life was like “back then”. Now I blog about everything but the main focus is still the same! One of my favorite posts is Goodnight Sweetheart! Hello Basil! Eh…Who’s Basil…

Hello, my name is Ann and I’m the author of A Nice Place in the Sun. I blog because I care about people and want to make them happy. My site is focused on humorous, inspiring, and nostalgic posts about life, children, and memories. My most representative post, or the post where I’m most myself is “The Craziest Experience Of My Life.”

We are a team of writers, and everyone calls us NAFA, so that would be our name. We are the proud authors of NAFASG©™ – United And Dedicated Behind You™. Blogging, to us, is a form of spreading useful information and sharing our knowledge to every part of the world in order to contribute to the betterment of our global community. The post that we feel would be representative of our blog and the global community at large is The Sociological Interaction.

Hola! This is Mariuca and I blog because writing is what makes me whole. I write about anything under the sun from life, love, friends to cats and work. I tend to write best when under pressure and my personal favourite post from Mariuca is Love in Disarray.

My name is Susan and I am the Owner of ~~Wake up America ~~, which is a political, right leaning blog. I blog because I believe we need more voices out there to separate fact from fiction, to support our troops and to high light the lack of ethics from journalists today. I feel my most powerful post is called “Are You Proud to be an American……”

“Here I am My name is Mauro and I’m the author of 1 Million Love Messages … maybe the biggest love challenge in the blogosphere. Why I blog ??? Because I believe that bloggers can make a difference in the world. That’s my challenge! My favourite post it’s (for sure) Adam Donkus & Lizzie’s Love History.”

Hi there World I am Aussie, the author of Little Aussie Cynic and I want to Breathe among others. I was recently asked:”Why Do you Blog?” this takes me back to the beginning… I started blogging in an attempt to get people thinking, using my cynical humour as a tool to make people laugh, think and at times get the blood pumping…. Each of my Blogs takes in a little peice of my varied personality but the one which discribes me best would have to be There is Always a Natural Way the latest edition to the Aussie Cynic Family…

I am Zubli Zainordin, in Total Happiness, I organize the Book Project blog and co-author Santa’s Community Blog and Hall Of Fame Blog. I blog with the purpose of documenting about my self for my own reference, my future generations and friends who prefer to know me. I also share vital and valuable information entirely on total happiness. I believe in Santa Claus and I share the Spirit of Christmas within this Blog World. In addition I promote bloggers, their blogs, and invite them to share their blogging experiences, and together with Shinade, I review their blogs and award them with the Zubli and Shinade Recommended Read awards. Those who continuously show continuous blogging improvements shall be residence of the Hall Of Fame blog.

Hello my name is Deborah author of Climate of Our Future, I also co-author She Walks in Beauty. I blog with passion for our environment. I started this blog because I believe that we as bloggers have a very loud voice in this blogosphere. that By sharing what knowledge I find about our environment would not only benefit the blogger but also our environment. I also blog about Beauty, because no matter how harmed and polluted our world has become I can still see the beauty within. My favorite post would have to be the one about plastic in the Pacific twice the size of Texas.

I’m Nina Munteanu, ecologist, SF author, wife and mother and lover on a journey on this beloved planet Earth…your Alien Next Door. I blog for the same reason that I write my short stories and novels…because I have to. I blog to share my passion for the beauty and wonder of this planet Earth through science and art and to share the little wisdom and insight I’ve gained in my few years on the Earth…and certainly to gain some from you (I love your comments! Thank you!). My favorite post is about one of my heroes, Doctor Lynn Margulis, courageous scientist who would not be dissuaded from speaking the truth even when at the time it seemed like a lie: imagine saying we evolve through cooperation; not competition! What anti-Darwinian cheek!

My name’s Bob Kingsley, author of ‘Somerset’ Bob’s Place. I blog because I want to be a writer. I’ve wanted to be known as a writer all my life, and as I’ve now reached my early 50s I figured I ought to get started before it’s too late! I thought science fiction would be my forté (I wrote a number of short stories some years ago, available at my site’s Writing Archive), but since starting my blog in March 2007 I’ve discovered I have a passion for writing non-fiction pieces — principally about the environment and climate change, but also taking in the places I’ve visited, my online/computer experiences, the random thoughts I have, the music I love and the people I met during my time as a radio presenter. It’s a pretty eclectic collection of posts. I don’t think I’ve written my favourite post yet, but one that’s right up there is Tagged With Music, which was the subject of another meme that came my way — it really made me think, which is what I love about being tagged with memes.

**stop copying**

Time for me to tag five more people in a moment — and to make copying and pasting the above list with all the links in place, I’ve created a text file for you to download so you can simply copy and paste the contents into your own post, should you decide to participate — I found having to manually copy each site’s link and then paste them into my post quite time-consuming, so I thought this might make it easier for you. (It might look a compressed mess when you open it in Notepad — word wrap is off — but copying all of it as it is and pasting it into a WordPress post window works for me — so hopefully it’ll work for you too, even if you don’t use WordPress!)

After you’ve pasted the contents into your post, add your own addition between my entry and the **stop copying** line.

Here’s the link to the meme.txt — right-click and “Save target as …”.

My five selected bloggers are:

Dave at English Blogger — My Back Garden

Jill at Wordsmith Extraordinaire

Mama at Mama’s Bloggin’

Haddock at Greenhaddock

and … no, I tell you what: I’ll leave the fifth one open, for YOU, dear casual browser!

Tags: Internet, Meme, Web 2.0, Web Publishing, Writing

This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.