The Cult of the Amateur Professional

It seems my return to blogging is out of time. The blogosphere is now rife with professional bloggers, online magazines and long-form writers, according to Wired. Instead it’s much easier to post pictures to Flickr and send Twitter updates.

True ‘dat.

But I guess it depends what you want or need out of writing in public…and if audience size ain’t your prerogative or you’re not eking out a living from your bloggy skills then what the hell. It’s not gonna stop me, I tell you…

UPDATE: Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008 seems to point the same way, although it’s interesting that it backs up blogging as being a more reflective approach to writing than many of the upstart microblogging tools allow.

I agree – blogging for me has always been about the ritual of deepening my knowledge in a particular issue. It forces you to critique, to have a position and to enter the conversation…assuming that you have an engaged audience, of course. Otherwise you’re blowing smoke into a gale…

My statistical addiction

I had the sudden realisation, the other day, that my current daily routine takes in a number of different statistical feeds – and this set me to thinking that *this* is part of the reason that creating your own content is fun. It’s the sense of audience that gives you more of a perspective on the stuff that you put out there.

So, I check out my Flickr stats on a regular basis, then I check my blog stats, and finally, less frequently, I check out LastFM stats for Inaura, one of the bands I used to play with.

It’s this stuff that is ‘sticky’ for me – and I’m not normally obsessed by stuff like this…