The newspapers always had a "Society" column where subscribers could send in articles announcing birthday parties, visiting relatives, shopping trips to St. Louis and other social events. They would have one like this; "Mrs Joe Blow entertained her sister and brother-in-law for Sunday dinner. They enjoyed a cookout in the yard and great conversation." I've observed this in newspapers back to the early 1900s through present day. My hometown newspaper included articles such as the above from 3-4 smaller towns in the area.
Now I see blogs that are much like the old newspaper articles. "Bobby & Mary joined us at Taco Bell for lunch today". The requisite pictures of the tacos and burritos have a special place in the blog. I am not criticizing the blog, (I do the same pictures), but it seems that blogging has taken the place of small town newspapers in that regard, only the audience is wider, but probably less read.
It is interesting to read some blogs and see they have the same theme day after day. Some blogs concentrate on their pets and feature them a lot, while others abhor the thoughts of having pets. Since I mainly read blogs about RVing and camping, the blogs tend to look alike after a while. I still find most of them interesting, but quit reading the ones where health issues and pet peeves dominate the blogs from day to day.
Once former RV Fulltimers come off the road they either quit blogging right away or try to write blogs about their daily lives. Most of these blogs fade away after a while or they are occasionally updated. I wonder where old blogs go after being abandoned by the owners? Will people still be reading them a hundred years from now and studying them like we study Shakespeare now and looking for hidden meanings?
It seems to me that RV blogs are started to keep family and friends informed where the blogger is and what they are doing. By reading the comments it is apparent that non-family members and friends don't leave comments nearly as much as others who follow the blog. In my case, a few family members follow the blog and more friends do so, but there are many others out there that read the blog and leave comments. All comments are appreciated.
You may wonder where I am going with this posting. The simple answer is: Nowhere. Just posting observations about small town newspapers and blogs. Thanks for reading this especially if you have gotten this far.
Like most, I started my blog to keep family and friends informed about where we are. Didn't take too long to figure out that most of my family either don't read it or they "catch up" every few weeks. Now I tend to write it as kind of a journal to keep track for us. While we are full-timers (going on 13 years now) I'll admit that my blogs are all over the board. I have too many interests to limit the subject to RVing... I just figure if I'm boring I can easily be removed from folks lists ;-)
ReplyDeleteI too started blogging to keep family in the loop but they weren't interested enough or thought they were to important to have to read the blog. They expect to be told personally or at least by telephone. They just don't realize how many people blogging keeps in the know and how much easier it is on the blogger. Keep on blogging Lead Dog
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ReplyDeleteI wanted to share pictures with my kids from when they were growing up and if you think it is tough to get people to read your blog try to get a bunch of 20 year olds to sit to look at old pictures! I get a lot of enjoyment out of doing it but yet sometimes it does feel like a job to keep it going or keep it interesting and often I think about stopping but I just keep going. You have to set up a time to read them just like people would read the hometown newspaper that you are referring to and my time is usually 5am when I wake up. After spending 30 years in a job that didn't stop from morning till night I never took the time but now in my new job I have the time and I look forward to the Lead Dog blog each morning! I also let some family members "guest blog" about an event that they had and that is fun. Since I really want some people to read it that are now in that rat race job I set them up on the automatic email. I know you disagree with that but they like seeing it and are just too busy to remember to go to the blog. The email will show up on their IPhone so it reminds them to read it. My blog updates every morning at 5am and I still get people that will ask me "what time do you get up to write the blog"...Rookies! Now if you would start texting your world would open up even more!
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Yep - I started my blog so my Dad could follow along with us. Thought about giving it up when he died but then decided I would miss it. I love the community of bloggers and have met the most wonderful people through blogs. I know my blog gets boring at times - even I get bored with it. But I keep plugging along. I was amazed to find out that several family members actually do read it. They never comment but they do read.
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