For those with personal blogs out there, who do you write for? Is there someone you gear your blog towards? Who is your audience?
In my case, I have a wide audience. I mostly write on personal matters and thoughts so the majority of my readers are people I know, either in real life or people I know from the internet. These people are friends and family that pretty much know what’s going on in my day to day life. I don’t really write for them though. In fact, if I didn’t write here I’m sure they’d keep up with my life in another way (and many do keep up with my life in multiple ways). I think mostly I write on this blog for myself. It’s not so much so other people can read my thoughts and what’s going on, it’s more for me to be able to organize my thoughts and put them down.
Sure, there are times when the post is dedicated to the audience at large, and an audience that extends well-beyond friends and family. My Song of the Week posts are made to expose new music to anyone who happens upon my site. Or take a post like The Genius of Tupac. Again, friends and family know what a fan of him I am, this was directed at a larger audience, especially people finding out what Tupac was about for the first time. And then there are my rants on various items, services, and stores to warn people of these things. Sometimes, I even like to throw in a post to show just how weird eccentric I really am. Every once in a while, I’d even write to a specific person (who I know still visits but I no longer write to them). For the most part though, I write for myself. This may not get me the most traffic or visitors, but I’m not trying to be the most popular. I’m just being me.
Wint-O-Hot
I’ve had this pain in my left shoulder and going up neck for the past couple days. Last night I decided to put some Icy-Hot on it. I love how much it soothes the muscle but I hate the smell of it. Why? Because it has a wintergreen smell. It smells exactly like Life Savers’ Wint-o-green flavored candy. Why in the world do you make a muscle cream smell like wintergreen candy? What is the point of this? Is the smell supposed to relax me further? Honestly, it just made me want to lick my shoulder. Luckily, I can’t reach my shoulder with my tongue, otherwise it might have happened. I really don’t understand it. What’s next, fungal cream that smells like cotton candy? There has to be a better scent out there for this. Or how about, no scent at all! That way, I don’t get my creams and candies confused. This may have an adverse effect on my Lifesavers enjoyment as well. Next time I get some Lifesavers, am I going to rub them over my body expecting some nice muscle relaxation? I really don’t want my muscle cream smelling like candy, so, makers of Icy-Hot, please change the scent of your product.
Who Do You Write For?
For those with personal blogs out there, who do you write for? Is there someone you gear your blog towards? Who is your audience?
In my case, I have a wide audience. I mostly write on personal matters and thoughts so the majority of my readers are people I know, either in real life or people I know from the internet. These people are friends and family that pretty much know what’s going on in my day to day life. I don’t really write for them though. In fact, if I didn’t write here I’m sure they’d keep up with my life in another way (and many do keep up with my life in multiple ways). I think mostly I write on this blog for myself. It’s not so much so other people can read my thoughts and what’s going on, it’s more for me to be able to organize my thoughts and put them down.
Sure, there are times when the post is dedicated to the audience at large, and an audience that extends well-beyond friends and family. My Song of the Week posts are made to expose new music to anyone who happens upon my site. Or take a post like The Genius of Tupac. Again, friends and family know what a fan of him I am, this was directed at a larger audience, especially people finding out what Tupac was about for the first time. And then there are my rants on various items, services, and stores to warn people of these things. Sometimes, I even like to throw in a post to show just how
weirdeccentric I really am. Every once in a while, I’d even write to a specific person (who I know still visits but I no longer write to them). For the most part though, I write for myself. This may not get me the most traffic or visitors, but I’m not trying to be the most popular. I’m just being me.A Scary Time of Year
It is October, which means it’s scary movie season. I love scary movies but I’m never really frightened from them. Newer movies are especially bad. They are either torture porn or not scary at all. The only movie that has ever really freaked me out was the original The Exorcist. That is such a good movie and really knows how to keep you on edge. So far this season I’ve watched The Happening, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Shutter. Next up are Poltergeist, Interview with the Vampire, maybe The Exorcism of Emily Rose again. I’m saving The Exorcist for right before Halloween. If anyone has any good horror movies to suggest, I’m open to them. (No torture porn like The Hills Have Eyes or Japanese remakes like The Grduge).
A New Job
No, I’m not leaving my job as a web developer. I’m still working there. What I have done is applied and gotten a job as a part-time tutor at Sylvan Learning Center. I could use the extra money, especially with the holidays coming up, so I decided to take the job. I originally applied last April when I was working at a school but they didn’t call me until recently. I’ll tutor for a couple hours a night a few times a week. It will suck giving up my free time but it’s only for a couple hours and I could use the money. It will also feel good to help the kids and interacting with them, something I’ve missed since I started the web development job. They want to start me out on reading and math and then train me for accelerated reading, speed reading, and ACT prep. So, if I’m not around as much, that’s the reason why. I start my training tomorrow.
Our Social World
I was thinking about how connected the world has become with the social aspect of various websites. It really is amazing how connected we’ve become with other people. I think that in the future we’ll be even more connected. For instance, right now if we want to become friends with someone we have to add them to each social network we use. This becomes tedious when we use a lot of different websites. In one scenario I might make a new friend. I’ll add them to IM to keep in touch. Of course, I’ll want to know what the person is up to so I’ll ad them to Twitter and Facebook. Maybe I want to know what their interests are and what websites they find interesting, so I’ll add them to Delicious and Digg. Oh, and when we get together and have a blast and take pictures I’ll want to see them, so I’ll add them to Flickr as well. I’m sure in the future in the natural development of the web, adding a person to all these will be much simpler (for instance, check out HelloMyNameisE.com for how they are doing it with mobile phones). Since this isn’t widely adopted yet, you still have to go and add one by one. That brings me to another problem. Deleting people.
When you finally want to break ties with someone, you have to go and delete them from every service and website. This is a giant pain. It’s amazing how much of our lives we share with others and even more amazing how much it takes to get them out of your life completely. Of course, even if you do remove them from the services, that doesn’t mean they are completely out of your life. They have the potential to keep tabs on you via your personal website, checking status updates on Twitter, checking images on Flickr, etc. It’s amazing how open we are with our data these days and how truly hard it is to break ties with someone. I wonder if services like HelloMyNameisE will allow you to remove the users just as easily as you add them. I think it is definitely something to look into. I wonder if, say in 10 or so years, we’ll see our openness backfire on us, or will we become even more social?