Why Do We Blog?

Over the last six weeks, I have discussed what business blogs are, whether businesses and business owners should blog, potential negatives in blogging, and various other topics that businesses could blog about. Today let’s look at why individuals and businesses blog. There are thousands of blogs on the internet, so what’s the big thing about blogging? Why do we blog?

Like any good blogger, I researched this topic and found a wonderful article which lists the reasons we blog. Susan Gunelius on About.com discusses reasons to Start a Blog at: http://weblogs.about.com/od/startingablog/tp/Top-Ten-Reasons-to-Blog.htm
Ms. Gunelius lists Ten Reasons we start a blog, but in reality they are the same reasons why anyone blogs or comments on blogs. Her ten reasons are:

1. To Express Thoughts and Opinions
2. To Market or Promote Something
3. To Help People
4. To Establish Yourself as an Expert
5. To Connect with People Like You
6. To Make a Difference
7. To Stay Active or Knowledgeable in a Field or Topic
8. To Stay connected with Friends and Family
9. To Make Money
10. To Have Fun and Be Creative

But her reasons are surprisingly familiar. It occurs to me that her reasons for blogging are the same reasons we began communicating in the first place.

Human beings are naturally social people. Since the beginning of time, mankind has communicated with others. Before the spoken word, early man used drawings or symbols to communicate with other humans. Then about 200,000 years ago the spoken word became “popular”. But verbal communication was limiting. Just imagine if the only communications we could enjoy were face-to-face?

Once we started talking nothing could stop us. What changed was how we communicated. A look at the history of communication, teaches us only the methods of communication are constantly changing. Whether we used cave drawings, Egyptian burial hieroglyphics, smoke signals, the spoken word, the written word, books, newspapers, magazines, Morse code, the landline telephone, satellite communications, and now the internet, nothing prevents humans from seeking others to talk to, to share ideas, express thoughts, establish ourselves as experts, have fun, and well just check out the list.

Blogging it seems is really just the 21st century’s version of the cave wall, the street market, the church, the fence, the water cooler and …….. Only time will tell what the next method of communication will be. Maybe psychic thought transfer????