"hits" that make us happy

The other day while browsing through some blogs, I came across a post where the writer had threatened his readers to leave him some comments; otherwise he would do the unimaginable act and commit suicide! This made me start thinking about the whole concept of blogging and its effects on the way we communicate among ourselves.

Other than some popular blogs which have a constant stream of loyal readers, the rest of us in the blogosphere use different methods to attract readers to our blogs. The situation has reached a point where some bloggers have started to use unethical methods to attract new readers to their blogs and we should start seeing some cases of troubled individuals who might spend hours in front of the monitor trying to sway more visitors to their blogs. The concept of "hits" has become such a big issue that there are currently many different trackers in the market to choose from.

We might all think our blogs are fantastic and at times feel disappointed that we don't have more visitors, but considering the size of the blogosphere and the number of people who keep their blogs up-to-date, perhaps we shouldn't really feel so dejected. We should always keep this essential concept in mind that by writing a few posts in our blogs, we cannot change the world. I know some people got very excited when the idea of blogging started to become popular, but again only those ideas expressed by well known individuals in the media, politics and other aspects of public life seem to be the ones that really matter and get some recognition. Other ideas expressed by ordinary people, no matter how original and intelligent they seem to be, get filtered out or get little attention.

I know a lot of people might not agree with me, but I don't think blogging is the best way to share ideas. It might still have some therapeutic value for the writer of the blog to express their feelings, instead of going out and in very extreme cases start shooting people, or in the case of the person I mentioned before, commit suicide. And if one has a constant audience who read all of his /her posts, then they might start to get to know the blogger’s thought process and share ideas. But for casual visitors who most of the time just quickly read the last posting in the blog, it's just a waste of time.

A similar situation is when you want to get to know a very well known author and you only read their latest book. You might get some ideas about their style of writing and you might even enjoy the book. But that's basically the end of it. If you don't become an avid reader of a blog, you do not get any value out of it. If one does not visit certain blogs constantly and does not participate in the debates, one becomes like a casual guest at a party who makes some small talk and leaves the gathering without getting to know anyone else.