Who will read it?
When will you have time?
What will you say?
I hope to address those questions in this first post.
Who will read it?
As a practical matter, it is quite likely that nobody will read my blog. If somebody were to visit this page, I expect that he would be:
- A friend on a first visit, likely at my request (70%)
- A friend with nothing better to do or trying to procrastinate (20%)
- An unhappy surfer who happened to Google something that I talk about (5%)
- One of the avid devotees that I hope to inspire, but this may be wishful thinking (5%)
Theoretically, there is a great audience for this sort of thing.
This chart from a 2004 Pew Internet Survey shows that 27% of internet users, or over 32 million people, read blogs in 2004. I suspect that number would only have gone up by today.
Of course, some people will never understand. The same survey reported that 62% of internet users don’t even know what a blog is.
Lacking a clear picture of who will visit this page, I could group myself with the 52% of bloggers (6 million American adults) who claim to blog mostly for themselves, according to a 2006 study.
But one might wonder why those people publish their ideas in a public forum at all, so I am going to claim to write for an audience of my peers, even though I don’t know quite who they are yet.
When will you have time?
I promise you this: if I am writing something for this blog, I “should” be doing at least 10 other things instead. However, I think I might like doing this, so maybe I’ll do it anyway.
Lot’s of other bloggers have better things to do too, and they manage somehow.
Note that compared to the average internet user, bloggers are more likely to have attributes associated with a busy life.
And hey, if it doesn’t work out, so be it. 51% of bloggers have been blogging for less than a year, so I’m in pretty good company.
(These stats are from the 2006 Pew Internet Survey).
What will you say?
"Now that I have no shame, I will proclaim it.
Given the chance, I will go where the people are,
Tell everybody; if you shut me here,
I will move the very woods and rocks to pity.
The air of Heaven will hear, and any god,
If there is any god in Heaven, will hear me."
In this speech from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Philomela, princess of Athens, has just been raped by Tereus, and these threatening words prompt her assailant to cut out her tongue as well. Left with no other means of communication, Philomela weaves the scene into a tapestry.
This vignette is often read as a statement of the irrepressible nature of language. The thesis is that try as one might to suppress a thought, it will come out, and it will find an audience. When something interests me, I hope simply to record my thoughts on it here so that they do not go to waste. If they are provocative enough, somebody may read them one day.
