Obsession with visitors
Princeton defines blog as "web log: a shared on-line journal where people can post diary entries about their personal experiences and hobbies; postings on a blog are usually in chronological order"
If it is supposed to be a personal journal, then why are people so obsessed with how many people read it, or comment on it or follow it? It is a journal for you to write how you feel about some things. True, you may be writing with a larger audience in mind, but does that mean that since the audience is not reading your blog; you will go bonkers. Were you writing a diary in the good old days, would you really want all your friends and family to go through it?
And lets be realistic. There are like a million blogs on the net now. How many do you visit regularly? Perhaps four or five... At max ten. Whats the chance of that happening for you? Unless you are a Sociopath Blogger or very very good at some niche area, due to which your visibility is bound to increase or that you have been on blogosphere since fire was discovered.
So please, stop obsessing about not nearly enough people visiting/following/commenting on your blog and get back to writing into your journal.
Would appreciate some brain picking on this matter.
PS: Please DO NOT post link to any blog in this thread. If people are interested by your views, let them go to your Indiblog Profile and subsequently to your blog.
If not concerned about readership, why blog at all! One would use the ancient Diary!
The blog as I see, is a place to express yourself and let the heart, mind, soul open (to an extent that you would wish for) and let the world know about you!
A blog without readers is like a body without soul. Content and matter are very important, but so are the readers. Thats the reason why I regard them as GODS in my blog! 
True that readers are an important part of the whole blogging scenario... But they are not the only important thing... The entire obsession with getting the visitor count high leads to problems such as Self Promotion and commenting on posts with blog address forcibly in the signature just so that some people may click on it... You should keep on blogging according to your heart's desire and let the followers, follow
Cheers
Hi Aashish ! agree with Addy, if u really don't bother about readership, then better write a diary.
Also, going mad about why ur blog is not being read is stupid. On the other hand promoting ur blog is not a bad idea at all. After all, we are social beings. In our real life, at times, we cannot express in a certain way but on a blog we have liberty and then we like to know what other's think about it. How other's appreciate ur idea/ ur approach/ ur skill.
And about leaving one's link. That is only to facilitate the reader. Why do u see it as a forceful act ?? click it or leave it!
Restless
Nice post. Bang on. btw, how many people have read the post yet? 
a very hearty good afternoon to you ashishji,
at the very beginning I wud just like to say that there are quite a number of pseudo intellectuals all around here in this world iand i find one such attitude smacking right away from your blog, first of all every body until and unless he or she is an enlighted being loves to be in the spotlight,so whether I blog about my personal feelings or about technical issues from politics to abstract social causes i would always love the visitors to be there for a few of the following reasons.....
- they make me feel special,they may identify or disagree with me but they give me a reason to believe that i am being heard.
- Being a part of the society and a blogger i cannot go discrete and become socially retarded.
- whether i write personal thoughts or my abstract feelings the very reason behind being on a blog is to get others to read what i feel what i express literally or else you have the option to write in a diary.
- for a blog to be known and to be shared it is essential for it to have visitors or else it would be like a desert rose which is a beautiful bloom a with an enchanting smell but none to appreciate its beauty.
and don't tel me you do not like visitors on your blog, for i think that anyone on a self discovery mode needs to take part in contests on blogging communities only when he seeks the incentive of being known which is only possible with visitors seeing your blog.
and yes We should be careful and discriminating in all the advice we give. We should be especially careful in giving advice that we would not think of following ourselves. so when you strike a note and tell the bloggers community to not to be obsessed with visitors i suggest you follow the same.
and at last i find this topic posted by you as an stunt to get the spotlight and personally am hurt and feel disappointed on seeing worthy intellect being wasted on topics like this, and yes so far posting the links are concerned well that differs from person to person and i personally regard it to be self promotion.
love and light
with regards
divz.
i just read the post once again and i realize i was being a bit too sarcastic up there in discussing the topic, i humbly apologize aashishji if i have over spoken somewhere i just wrote and wrote , i badly missed a delete button in the forum today.
Loved your comment divz!!!! u said what u felt like saying, so why apologize? Every body has the right to have one's own opinion. Have it flaunt it! But yes, take care of your language, and I don't think u used any unparliamentary language here. You just gave feedback on the topic which Ashishji wanted.
Hope u r not annoyed dear Ashishji ??
Restless
wel , wat mr. ashish said is partly right , u shudnt bother abt nethn else other than te content of ur blog ...if u hv it in u , readers wil come ....some may nt like wat u write , some may love it , or some may jus feel lazy enuf nt to comment...but te whole idea is to write wat u feel...tats shud b te basic idea...isnt it ?
on te other hand , te readers who visit n comment on ur blog , tat feels like an inspiration...i mean if i write sumthn , n no one appreciates it , then te whole point of writing te post becomes nil....if sum1 honestly likes my posts n comments on it , it makes me feel good n i like to thank them for makin me feel tat i wrote sumthn worthwhile....
simply put , write wat u feel , n let others decide if its worth it....
@ Restless (First time): Though the links are supposed to be a "facilitator", it is more of a problem with people who will comment on ur post only to get an opportunity to post the link to their site... And my idea for this post was to gauge what people think about the excess obsession with visitors... As it is said in one of the replies, lets worry about the content and then try to build netwrk through sites such as this and the other social networking portals and then let the followers, follow.
@ Har****: Thanx mate... Though dont know how to check how many people read the post... 7 replies, though, till the last count
@ Divyangshu (First time): I am surprised that I come across as a "Pseudo-Intellectual"... I would have been happier had you said "Intellectual" instead. I agree that we blog and want people to read through what we have written... but obsessing about nobody having read it doesnt help... Ofcourse the readers are the source of life for a blog and we all want our blog to live... But the kind of thing like "Oh... nobody commented on my facebook picture so let me tag it with all my buddies" is no solution... Ofcourse I also track who all visited my blog though Google Analytics... but that doesnt mean that if a particular post os not being read enough, I go posting links to it at all possible opportunities to increase my visitor count :D
@ Divyangshu (Second time): No need for apologies yaar... As @Restless said... we all are entitled to our opinions
@ Restless (Second time): Rightly said...
@ Just a Pen: I totally agree with what you say... Thats my idea as well
@Har****: I dont know why that star thing happened
Har (s h i t) unfortunately has a slang in his name.. you dont worry about it.. thats to protect indiblogger from usage of abusive words.. its just a clubuttic mistake...
*Clbuttic
hi every body, I remember when Mark Twain was a struggling writer,and being rejected everywhere. when one publsher called him up by mistake,very happily he went and narrated his story. When publisher learnt of his mistake he got mark twain threw`out of his office. later Mark Twain became famous and thet both met at a party, Publisher told Mark Twain,"I feel myself the most prized ass in the world.
The point here i want to make is that the talent which dies, is rekindled by this latest technology we have here.
If we encourge hesitant writers, our community will grow.
If we discourage them,their opportunity is hindered,and they will drop the thing and say
'is not my cup of tea.'
Well I can say clearly the feeling of elation you have when a stranger says he liked it.
Pramod
I agree with Pramod.It can't be said any better.
All new bloggers shd keep in mind that the horse is what you write.That comes first.The cart (READERS)-is pulled by that.We may have different stands on how or how not to promote our Blogs.Its a personal Choice.
We all have a thirst to be heard-so genuine readers can give an impetus to our writing.Indiblogger is such a great forum for meeting fellow bloggers,let us not dig in our heels and be belligerent.Indi is about encouraging,showcasing and good-natured ribbing.
interestingly put.. horse and the cart..
cant agree with you more on what you say about IndiBlogger..
mag???
Yes I do agree that the readers are lifeline to a writer. However, merely writing for the sake of attracting attention of readers (which is something the news channels do a lot... masala news) or to keep on soliciting visitors is not the way to go.
Princeton defines blog as "web log: a shared on-line journal where people can post diary entries about their personal experiences and hobbies; postings on a blog are usually in chronological order"
It is my guess that this is how blogs started. I've been maintaining one for a long time, think of it as my journal and rarely use the word "blog" to refer to it. I guess this is because I started it before the word came in vogue. My journal has gone through different phases, during which my readership -- both in terms of the number of visitors and the quality of the discussion -- has fluctuated greatly. But i've continued to write independent of this.
This is not to say I don't care about my readers, but just to point out that they are not my primary driver.
But your definition from Princeton does not hold for a majority of the sites that call themselves blogs today. Today, blogs serve as much more than people's personal diaries. They function as interactive portions of news sites, marketing for companies, a vehicle to deliver media, forums for discussion and dissemenation of ideas, ... . Many of their interests are commercial, and in a large number of these cases, more readership implies more earnings/brand awareness/products sold/... .
This is why so many blogs obsess with their visitors -- getting more of them, and retaining them. It is annoying, yes. But it is only natural that they are going to try every avenue to boost their readership.
true pundit.. Blogs arent personal anymore
Hi all,
i had read ,when we cross 40 years of age our mind changes place with the waist.(broad mind & narrow waist)
we have to be more broad minded. points raised by Sir Aashish ji are good but they might be overlooked for greater benefits.
Gehun ke saath ghun pisa jaata hai.
fake and irrelevant ones will be wipedout by themselves.
only real readers will survive.
That was some thing sir!
when we cross 40 years of age our mind changes place with the waist.(broad mind & narrow waist)
That's why I always say keep your waists narrow:the mind will take care of itself !!
When you write for yourself ,you are the judge and you feel great about it and that is a kind of stress buster but when you display it in front of others ,you want them to judge,you start believing in comments,ranking system ,wants traffic feeds..........you start ranking yourself and unknowingly join competition .........this induces stress .
but its other side is if u want to do it professionly then somewhere u will loose original u and start writing for ur readers keeping in mind their choice .to some it really works well.
In short do whatever makes you happy......if u r happy in competitive atmosphere or wants to write for people with their vision, their is nothing bad about it, perception will remain yours because you are writing that.If u r happy reading ur ownself without anybody's interference ,do that.Just be fair enough to ur conscious and don't burden it.
Dil bahlane ka bahaana tha Tassavur mera
Boliyan uss pe lagne lagi to Begaana hua.
Tassavur:imagination
Sign in to reply to this thread
