I'm Blogging Less; Are You?

My blogging frequency is steadily decreasing. Interestingly, so is the blogging frequency of several of my blogger cohorts, the one impressive exception being Barbara at Looking2Live. As for the others, I won't single you out. You know who you are.

Why am I blogging less? For one thing, most of my earliest blog posts were about political or policy issues. That quickly got boring, especially given the number of blowhard bloggers who bloviate about politics. Also, moving outside the Beltway and to California has refreshingly changed my perspective on politics. "Inside the Beltway" is a genuine mindset.

Since I rarely write about politics anymore, and I don't write about my sex life, celebrities, or the television shows "Lost" or "24," what the hell am I gonna blog about? I've gotten very choosy about blogging subjects. I will only write and publish a blog post if (1) the subject is really on my mind, or near and dear to my heart; and (2) I think it will have wide appeal to readers.

Speaking of reader appeal, the other change in my blogging thinking involves the target audience. I no longer blog from the "inside out," to try to attract a following of readers/commenters. I don't bug my busy friends to read my blog. If they read the blog, fine, if not, that's fine too. On the other hand, the number of site visits I get from the "outside in," i.e., searchers on Google and other search engines, has steadily increased over time. My months-old blog posts on certain random subjects (layered t-shirts, Grouply, Sambo's restaurant, and euphemisms) consistently get hits every day. Perhaps some of those searchers are converted into regular readers.

I am also cheating on my blog with another group blog where I am a contributing writer. That blog is occupying an increasing amount of my blogging energy.

Ironically, however, the less frequently I blog here at Media Concepts, the more site visits, links and citations it receives, and the more popular it gets, according to the rankings. Is this a case of something being more attractive when it's more scarce? I don't know, but, given these results, what is my incentive to blog here more often?

I would be interested to know, however, if other bloggers besides the ones I have in mind are blogging on their personal blogs less frequently, and, if so, why? Did they get bored? Did the novelty wear off? Are they committing blog adultery with another blog? Or are their blogs, like mine, counterintuitively becoming more popular the less frequently they write?

This almost sounds like one of those government subsidies where farmers are paid not to grow crops. Oops, that's political, forget it.