The Dying Genre of Journal-Blog
This might be news to some of you young guys, but back in the day, blogs were online versions of diaries.
This had its obvious drawbacks: People saying, “look at my blog!” only to have it be a detailed entry about how they hung their washing out to dry.
…and honestly, when I talk to my Mum and Dad about writing a blog, I’m 90% sure that’s what they think it’s all about.
Anyway, most of that stuff has been relegated to Facebook, which is a good thing.
But there were benefits to the journal blogging thing that seem to be being lost to time only to be replaced by list posts and affiliate articles.
I’ve no problems with either of those things, but I think about how bloggers used to chronicle successes, failures and weird things… and realise that a lot of the benefits of that approach are being lost.
Why You Need To Save The Journal Blog
Why should we care about this dying form of art?
Well, I care because the journal blog is where a lot of the ideas that run through this blog generate.
Things like:
- Do some experiments
- Constant content creation through new stuff
- Building rapport by being an actual human being
There are more, but I’m rushing a little here. Mostly, I’m concerned with the fact that nobody is sharing their journey (bad for community building) and doing experiments.
Experiments are the backbone of new opportunities, leveraging opportunities and most importantly not being boring.
Sure, there are the benefits of content creation: SEO, keywords, building an audience, boring, boring, boring… but there’s an undercurrent that seems to affect the internet with the death of the journal blog.
And don’t get me wrong… I don’t care if it’s a blog, or Twitter, or YouTube. The medium doesn’t matter.
The story matters. The journey matters.
The undercurrent seems to be that people start a blog (or Twitter, whatever) only to post a million incarnations of:
“Ten Ways To Be As Boring As Everyone Else.”
Someone on Twitter direct messaged me to ask about niche sites the other day.
“If I create a niche website and I only have a couple of products to review, is that ok? Or do I need more content?”
The answer to this is a simple case of doing some experiments and chronicling them.
If you do this, you don’t ever have to worry about content.
You also stave off depression, (not joking,) achieve more, (not joking,) and get hundreds of groupies who think you’re a god, (joking, but maybe just haven’t got there yet.)
In all seriousness though, I write this blog as a psychological tool, among other things. If my articles are rubbish, then I know it’s time to try something new. If I wake up in the morning ready to recount the weird and wonderful results of the latest stupid thing I’ve done, then I know I’ve done something right.
You can have the same, and all the benefits besides.
P.S. (Thought: Am I addressing this to you, or myself in the future? Does this matter anyway?)