Blog Awards Challenge

Blog Awards Challenge 1st runner-up (Distinction): 2Fourteen

Winning Entry Title: Blog: a nonsense business? [original link]

Winning entry is reprinted below.

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My summer sunburn is agonizing! It’s stinging me as I write this blog entry.

After spending two seconds of your lifetime reading the two sentences above, you ask yourself: WHO CARES? If you worship me as your idol or if you have a head-over-heels crush on me, I would understand if reading it excites you.

As Malu Fernandez in her Manila Standard Today column puts it…


“But blogging, aside from Perez Hilton and the other big time bloggers (you know who you are) is for me a slacker job or a medium and pastime for lonely people to connect. Unless you’re in bloody Siberia or in a Gulag prison, try stepping outside your comfort zone and turn off the laptop or pc, you just might find some real live people to talk to instead of typing away in cyber space.”

Perhaps Malu has a stereotyped notion of what a blog is. When blogging began, most people described it as an online diary, some sort of a tunnel in which people channel their frustrations and depressions. I myself was introduced to blogging as such. The blogging and online diary thread in pinoyexchange.com forum was merged, making it seem like there is no difference between them at all. I remember inviting my friend to write his own blog and he responded: “Who would be stupid enough to broadcast everything about his self online? Not unless you are Manny Pacquiao or what”

But when you actually started to participate in the blogosphere, you will learn that blogs are more than just a diary. Diaries are personal accounts of a person while blogs can do the following:

People blog to...

To impart information
The internet is not called the information highway for nothing. Blogs have become an avenue for people to document their mastery in their fields. Some bloggers learn by the book, some learn by experience and some learn by both. A blogger may share something about passing the college entrance test of a university. Another may write about the latest technologies, cars or political events. The topics are limitless

EXAMPLE:
To avoid sunburn, apply a generous amount of lotion with skin protection formula against the rays of the sun whenever you go out on a beach or an open field concert.

To generate income
Humans as we are, we are drawn to the idea of making a fortune out of something. People soon began noticing that blogs are a feasible source of cash. There had been testimonies that people earn a few hundreds of dollars by blogging. Placing ads in their blogs sound like a passive money maker, however, there are aggressive approaches as well. Numerous sites offer a pay-per-post program. Some companies contact bloggers to write about their product for financial compensation.

EXAMPLE:
Click the advertisement on this blog for me to generate income and buy a sun block.

To Advocate
Save the Earth, No to Pornography, Oust the President and Save the Penguins are few of the resounding tones blogs have if their purpose is to advocate. Their blogs are committed to realize an advocacy. They build communities of bloggers to increase their potency. They write their thoughts on a topic and aren’t afraid to debate with people who doesn’t have the same perspective.

EXAMPLE:
No to CFC-emitting products! Let’ save our children from the harmful UV-rays!

To Promote
The 2008 earth hour gained a considerable amount of attention worldwide from the efforts of concerned bloggers. They promoted the event on their blog. Concerts and products can be promoted in the blog as well. The Blog Awards Challenge in which this entry was written for invested much in making the bloggers promote the event in their respective blogs.

EXAMPLE:
Skin Light papaya lotion is effective against the sun rays and will leave your skin impenetrable against it. It is available on all major pharmaceuticals worldwide.

To Share/Reflect
This is what majority of bloggers do. They tell you what had transpired during their day. Be it their love life, college life, unexpected event or a miracle, they share whatever had caught their imagination. If a thought sparked out after minutes of reflections, it is but wiser to immortalize it in texts so as not to be forgotten.

EXAMPLE:
This sunburn reminds me of my poignant love story. Each time it stings, my heart responds accordingly.

These are few of the reasons why bloggers do their thing and there will be new niches for millions of bloggers to take up in the future. A diary can’t do that.

The Driving Factor
Who wouldn’t want a few bucks out of nothing but an internet connection and a computer? When I began blogging, I was profit-driven. I went to numerous sites telling me how to earn money while blogging. I resorted to pay-per-click ads, pop-ups, and pay-per-posts.

Generating humungous amount of traffic brings excitement to me as well. I practiced aggressive approaches in promoting my blog in the pinoyexchange.com forums. I enjoyed a sharp spike in my visits graph in Google analytics but the very next day, the number of visitors dropped heavily.

I did everything I was told to do to get heavily trafficked and to earn money but it doesn’t just seem right. I grew impatient, tired. Money’s fueling mechanism does not appeal to me anymore and when I looked back at my first blog, I realized that I wouldn’t want to read it myself! It looks like a frustrated high school collage project directing to nowhere because of all the ads, pop-ups and pointless blog entries.

And soon, I learned that I have to work backwards. The desire to generate income from this blog is still present but I have to get people reading my blog. This time, I practiced an internal approach. This blog has a target audience so I know to whom I will be writing for. I ensure that all my blog entries make sense that if I would be the reader, I would enjoy it myself. It leads me to my conclusion that a blog’s success is measured by its quality of readers not its quantity of readers.

Knowing that I have real readers provide a steady stream of compelling force for me to write. It keeps me thinking throughout my day what my readers would want to read about.

The apotheosis of your blog is when you notice that people can relate to you. They start to leave a comment or reaction to your entry. When I received my first comment, it brought me a fulfilling sensation and it fueled the passion to write further.

Why let the public read your personal entries rather than keep it to yourself in a diary? Sharing is a thrilling element in blogging. If you don’t want to share, you write your personal accounts in a diary but if you want to share you life story and hope to relate to others, blogging is one of the best avenue for that. If they don’t agree with your views, the internet is a free man’s territory. You could debate about the topic for eons. Blogging is a test of conviction as well.

But does looking for some people over the blogosphere for personal accounts imply that bloggers are short on true vis-à-vis friends to confide to? Blogging is an advanced form of communicating and that advancement cannot be possible if the basic foundation is not solid. Bloggers that make sense online is unlikely not to make sense in the real world so it is unlikely as well that bloggers who have superb communication skills have poor social skills.

The invention of blogs is a great blessing for it enables people to express and share their selves side-by-side with the influx of information over the internet. It has grown gradually that non-bloggers misconstrue it. For the bloggers who may happen to pass by this blog and read this entry, take it as a personal mission to let the world know that a blog is more than just a diary, it is a newly found democratic power.

My sunburn still aches at the moment.

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