Why do we blog?

First, why do I blog? I blog because:

• I like to think and I would like to jot it down before I forget my line of thoughts. Blog helps me immensely as it is something I don’t have to carry around physically like a journal or a diary and the entries are stored automatically in a chronological order, which helps some one who is organizationally challenged as I am.
• Writing it down and reading it later is a great way to identify and eliminate fallacies in my thinking and to sharpen my focus on the thesis.
• Blog format allows me to explore cornucopia of ideas rather than staying in one narrow line of thought.
• It is a pleasure to catch up with my long forgotten thoughts – I usually go back a year or so and enjoy reading some of the things I had thought through which I had totally forgotten.

What about others? I cannot realistically speak for all others; however, the blogs I have been reading fall into some broad categories:

· Diary of every day happenings mainly to keep a record for later enjoyment of their children or for their distant relatives or for themselves.

· Writing exercise of some kind; people who are very good writers and some not so good use it to polish their own writing styles. Feedback and positive reinforcements help them to finish (or at least try to finish) their writing projects.

· Trying to obtain feedback support and counseling while passing through some difficult patches in their lives – usually the blog community is extremely generous with advice and some of them do provide comfort and consolation to the blog writers as they themselves had gone through similar bad patches.

· To amuse others and act the class clown – they turn every day happenings into hilarious comedic acts and make people laugh. It takes a lot of effort on their part and they are rewarded with a loyal following of people who can do with a little laugh in their daily grind.

· To attract attention and to be the center of a vivacious conversation; it is similar to the previous category, the only difference being they use other than comedy to attract the attention such as sexual talks, arts, photographs etc.

· To influence people’s views, actions and outlook – this includes political, product advertisements, or social statements like environment, security, freedom etc.

· To disperse information regarding some of the things they are truly interested like hobbies, security etc.

I enjoy reading all of them and it would be dull day without them. I thank them all.