Why Blog

Take Darren Barefoot’s “Why do you blog?” survey and apparently you could win an iPod Shuffle. I figured it might be worth the five minutes, so I’ve posted my responses. Darren is hoping to survey the world’s bloggers to find out exactly what powers the blogosphere. Is it vanity? An addiction? Simply the urge to get your opinions across to as wide an audience as possible? There are only sixteen questions, so it’s not very onerous, but as a fellow blogger, I guess you’ll want to be as expansive in your responses as I was…it’s a compulsion, really.

I contacted Barefoot to ask him about his motivations in producing this survey, this is what he told me:

“I’m approaching the project with a very exploratory (and, I think, fairly unscientific) strategy,” he said, “I don’t necessarily have a hypothesis to prove or disprove. I’m hoping, in fact, that the results will drive further, more targeted interaction with bloggers to examine particular points.”

One point that he brought to light is that there could be some fascinating stuff that happens around a blogger’s perception of their readership. “When they inevitably realize that their blog is read by a larger audience than they originally thought, they can respond with strong emotions,” he told me, “That’s why I’m asking questions about existing and desired readership - to explore that phenomenon.”