Why do you blog?

Was aimlessly surfing the net today and I came across an article that really puts the finger on what blogging is all about:

'Blogging is about conversations among people in real time and real voices. That's what makes it sticky. Communities get built around these conversations. Sometimes with spontaneous order, at other times more gradually.'

It also goes on to talking about how influencial the blogging community can be. Gives examples of how a blogger aided a relief programme for Tsunami and Katrina victims and how Gaurav Sabni was threatened when he posted something negative on his blog about IIM's. Yikes how trivial is my blog in comparison.

Mind you, I didn't create this blog to influence change in the world, nor is it supposed to be my online journal. It was just made on a whim actually, and I've landed up quite enjoying the process.

I read alot more online now, I feel alot more clued into not only general things, but offbeat things happening in the world around me, like knowing a beer has been invented for dogs or how Machu Pichu is being ruined by tourism. Its funny how if I want to know how to enhance something on my blog, I go to a certain blog - thinking - he'd know; or if I find someones thought process interesting and that person doesn't post for a while, I get restless. Bizarre huh. Sometimes I leave a comment on someones blog I like, for the sake of it, just so that particular person might visit my blog someday.

A thought, spurred by a fellow bloggers post, 'how can we inject life into our blogosphere?'. I dont think our blogosphere is dead in anyway. Yes, we rant alot more than we should - but hey we can do that on blogs :) I also don't think you can 'plan' to make your blogosphere happening. The beauty of blogging is that random opinions are posted and sometimes they turn out to stimulate consequential conversations.

I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make here. This post has been fuelled by me trying to define the type of blogger I am; but the more I do it, the more I realise that I don't have to define the nature of anything I post. I'm not a writer or a journalist. However, writers and journalists influence. Perhaps thats what blogging is: being able to stimulate/impact/influence/inspire or merely make laugh a fellow blogger or reader.

But then again, I blog because I enjoy it, with no intention of any of the above. Have you thought about why you blog?

Another interesting point in this article is blogging and its impact on media.

' it is true that with the mainstream media dumbing down with a vengeance and looking to their bottom line rather than people who live at the bottom, bloggers are very much in business. They are telling it like it is, rather than what media barons decide is politically or commercially more convenient'

Are the days of the media numbered? And are we bloggers part of the reason? Imagine being part of some 'bloggers movement' to change the basis on which people form their opinions!
How exciting!

Anyway, this post of mine is a bit over-analysed so am going to stop while I'm making a bit of sense (I hope I am anyway!). But then again, do I really have to make sense to everyone who reads my blog? :)