Do you Blog for you or Others?

One of the concepts of a blog that I have been dealing with is, do I do it for me or do I focus it's content towards others. Well, I think I have come up with a nice mix. Or at least it appears that way to me.

So, when I decided I wanted to have a blog under my name, I thought, what will I write about. I have touched on this in an earlier post here and here, but wanted to expand on the type of content that I will produce. Of note, I was not a journalism major nor an English major, so you may come across sections within posts that do not fit the "Standard" for professional journalism. For that matter, you may find content that doesn't fit the English language. So it's a good thing, I'm not trying to be a professional in those regards. So before I tangent into another topic, lets get back to the question, "Do you blog for you or other?"

Blog for Me

I have found over the years, that when I just free form write, it helps clear the mind. And if you know me, my mind needs a good amount of cleaning from time to time. So when I go into one of these writing sessions, it just flows out. It may not have the organization that I want, it may not make any sense in the end, but to me, I feel as though I have used a little Clean Sweep on my brain. Normally at this point I would be done, as I would have no need to go back and review. But now that I will be sharing these thoughts and experiences with the world, I think I need to do some clean up of my work.

Now that I have the "draft" of my post, I will go back over it, because if you are like me, the brain and the fingers don't always cooperate. I find this happening in emails as well. The fingers just seem to be listening to a different brain sometimes. In my review, I look for the obvious errors and attempt to fix those, maybe spruce up the wording a bit and add links that may help explain my though process.

The clean up of a post is not always the most enjoyable aspect of blogging or whatever the new hip phrase may be, because after reading a post two, three or more times, the content starts to blur and I find myself wanting to add or remove chunks of the original. Granted sometimes that is needed, but when I blog for myself, I try to limit how much true editing takes place.

So the posts in the "Random" category will be those that I just toss out there for all to enjoy, but mainly because I had something to say on a subject or to clear my head. Just keep in mind, these may not be the cleanest or the most thought out or have the most information. Hope you enjoy them anyway.

Blog for Others

To provide content with a specific purpose of sharing with others seems like an easy task. In reality, I'm finding this to be a bit more complex. I have found one outlet for some of these posts over at DigiDose.com and at twitter @DigiDose. I met @zea on twitter and he runs the DigiDose site with several others. He has now posted a couple of my reviews (From the A User Take Series of Reviews, iPhone 3.0 and the iPhone 3GS - Links to DigiDose site) Thanks again zea.

Those were easy to write, once I decided on the content. I wrote both without knowing or planning on them going on another site, but I have no issues sharing what I write as long as I get credit for it. So now, do I start to write as if they will be published elsewhere, I think so. So what I plan to do, if they content is shared, I will place it in the "Published" category. 

Now my issue is what content do others what to see, should I do a poll?? Maybe, oh heck, lets do a poll, even though I don't have a lot of traffic. It will give me a chance to test out some features. So please check out the survey at the end. Until I get some response, you will see what I come up with and hopefully on a regular basis. 

Content Survey

Just a simple little survey that pops up.

 Answer to the question

Well did I answer the question. No or did I, but I think in the end, a person that blogs really is creating content for both themselves and for others. If the author is happy with the results, is satisfied with the content and enjoyed writing and sharing it, then all is good in the blogosphere. 

So until we blog again, may your sites be visited and if they crash, go with SquareSpace.