A Personal Blog Is What You Make it To Be

No one knows how many blogs there are on the internet and what subjects are covered – new blogs keep appearing every moment and there is no subject that is not being blogged about by someone somewhere. The internet has been in existence for 40 years and although it seems much longer, blogging has been around for a little over 10 – something people find hard to believe when the see how widespread its popularity is. Blogs, or web logs to give them their full name, began in the late 1990s as posts of personal information and opinions by individuals – thus the term “log” as in log book or record. Early blogs were personal blogs that were posted by people who had something to say or an opinion to express and found that the internet was the medium that gave them the widest reach.

A major hurdle for many new bloggers is that they do not know what subject to choose for their blogs because the do not know what subjects are already over exposed and what new subjects people will want to read about. These questions have answers that are very simple – bloggers can write about anything they have strong opinions on which they want to share with the world and as to the matter of whether there will be readers, the fact is that the internet has people of every kind, opinion and taste and whatever comes out in a personal blog will find people who will read it and respond. Often little know but important issues have been brought to the public’s notice through personal blogs. Of course, one of the most popular uses of a personal blog is to spread awareness about a subject that is close to the heart of the blogger and which he feels is not as well known as it deserves to be. A personal blog can also be used by the author to expose conspiracies and lies to the light of day by evoking the public interest on aspects of important issues that he thinks are either being ignored or are being deliberately covered up to keep the public in ignorance.

It is possible to make a living by being a blogger and a successful personal blog that because of the subject it covers or the style of the author, the type of discussion it generates, the people who respond to it or for any other reason has a large readership can sell advertising space and make money for the author. The personal blog can be used as a news medium to mobilize public opinion as has happened in places where press freedom is limited and the only way news can be disseminated is through the blogs of the people on the spot. But all this is secondary – the personal log is first of all a way for a person to tell the world what he has to say.