A friend of mine asked me that question about noon today. Then, I come home and a second friend, a sharp writer and thinker, asked the same question again.
Here is the dirt: Google and other places allow blogs, web logs or diaries, to be posted for free. I thought I might have something interesting to say and I started one. When I started the first one, there were about 40 million bloggers on the internet. Now, there are about 70 million bloggers. So, it is no wonder that just about anything you write will be ignored. You write. Others all over the world can read what you post and, depending on the settings you use in the blog, others all over the world can post comments. Day after day, month after month, zero comments. I tried to make commenting easier. A comment could then be left with a single click. Nada. Nobody listening.
One day, looking over the possible settings, I realized that Google offers the option to email a blog post to up to 10 email addresses. When I tried to decide who might be 10 people I would email my posts to, I found I had more than 10. But then I noticed another option, one where I email to as many people I want. Since I had a good number of friends, I tried that one.
So, since April 1, I have posted every day and sent every post to 43 addresses and also into the blog. Do I still have time to send personal emails? Yes, and I do send them. Do I get comments from recipients about the posts? Yes, usually something like one or two a day.
I was and am still interested in more comments and associations that others have in their minds. I know everyone of the recipients and they all have sharp minds. They are scattered from Oregon to New York, from Pennsylvania to Texas to Florida. But I guess they get too many emails and have too many other things to do, such as go to work. I tried setting up a Ning, a social network where people can say a little or a lot about who they are. There, they can exchange comments. The invitations to the Ning network called Mellows were sent last Friday, May 1. Since then, 8 friends or relatives of mine have signed in but so far, no one has left a comment for anyone else there, so far as I can tell.
33% of the recipients have stated without prompting or inquiry that they have been enjoying the posts. I have no idea how many are deleted without being read or how many are automatically deleted without being opened.
I have been fearing the day when all the recipients start their own blogs and I have 43 to read each day. Go to the main Google page to start one of your own.
