Why Do It?

Some have commented privately on a seeming change in content here lately and I wanted to say a few things about that. Blogging is sort of an adventure everyday - and what gets posted is mostly dependent on the mood of the day, the news, etc. But there are other factors, too.

As someone who studied and worked in journalism early in life, it's always been something I've enjoyed. For economic reasons I chose a different career path. I couldn't afford to work for the slave labor rates fledgling journalists get paid as my parents died early, one during college, one soon after my graduation. I needed to go to work and make some bucks, so I chose business over journalism at twice the salary right out of college and don't, or can't really regret it - why bother looking back?

When you write, there is something to be said for having it read. lol Whether you are trying to synthesize 5 - 10 different news pieces into one, or doing a quick paste and snip on a breaking story - it is writing, communicating - journalism, if you will.

Here's a quick look at some numbers from Blogger News on my most recent postings, cross-posted here in the last 24 hours.

Start date: 4/29/2005
Finish date: 4/30/2005

Author		# of Views	Average Readers/Story
Dan Riehl		15969	1064.6

For some perspective, if I were ranked by those numbers in the ecosystem traffic stats, for that one day, atypical I realize, because of a breaking news story, I'd be the 21st highest read blog in the system with 25% more traffic than, say, Wizbang - and from 2 - 10 times the number of readers than many of the blogs I read and enjoy.

Traffic isn't the be all and end all of blogging for me, by any means. And I plan to continue posting just as I always have - ranting and raving if I want, trying to be funny when I choose, and so on. But I really do enjoy doing newsy stuff, too - so it isn't purely selling out just to play some silly game about numbers, or blog size.

If you blog, or write in any form, you know there is something to be said about sitting back and realizing that the words you worked on, or maybe stayed up too late to compose, however they came to be, were viewed by nearly 16,000 people looking for information on a given topic. Simply put, it's satisfying.

None of the work I did was, or would have been acknowledged or linked by most of the major blogs out there - it isn't like I haven't tried that route, or won't continue to.

Here, I must acknowledge multiple links over time from bloggers like Ace, Betsy, Glenn, Rusty, a Malkin h/t and some significant others, which I really do appreciate very much. The above and more have been incredibly generous in helping a still young blog reach a wider audience.

But I've also found a new avenue to reach an even wider audience and enjoy doing the content they seem to want to read, as well as still enjoying doing the content I have been doing for some time. It doesn't get any better than that if you consider yourself any kind of a writer.

So, this isn't an apology, so much as it is an explanation - and I hope the folks that have been reading here all along will continue to, as I consider many of you friends, not simply readers.

Comments

[Pete]

Nothing but crickets chirping around here. Sometimes you can't help but wonder what keeps all these reactionary cranks going.

[Rhod]

Don't know if you're serious, Pete, but the reactionary cranks are on the left.

[Terry Gain]

Dan it would have been 15,970 if my damn computer hadn't crashed a week ago and if the Liberal government up here would stop stealing our money causing me to play catch up in the case of the former and to take time from visiting here to protest the latter.

I'm glad to see that your awesome productivity is attracting attention.

[Pile On®]

Serious news is all well and good I suppose, but Dan has been tagged in the turd in a punchbowl poetry [deleted], so it will have to take a back seat for a moment.

**click**