My post below about where the comments to my blog went was mostly tongue-in-cheek. Yesterday was a dead comment day until I posted a link over at Facebook, and then folks came over to leave a word. What I found puzzling was that I had quite a high visitor count for a Sunday, without a link from any of the major bloggers, so far as I've been able to tell, and so few comments (one!) until the link at Facebook. Maybe folks were busy meditating on the saints.
Please don't misunderstand me to imply that anyone should feel OBLIGATED to visit my blog or leave a comment. I have good friends who never read Wounded Bird, and we remain good friends. Blogging is something I do, because I enjoy it, and the same goes for visiting around other blogs, although time constraints affect both activities.
Nor do I intend to fault or mock those of you who like Facebook and Twitter. With Twitter, I was in and out in a matter of hours. I didn't know what was going on, and I saw right away that it was not where I wanted to be. I see the attraction of FB. It's an easy way to keep in touch with family and friends, it can be useful as a way to circulate worthwhile information, and it can be fun. Also, in its favor, FB is not as time-consuming as blogging and reading blogs, although some folks seem to spend a good deal of time there.
Blogging is changing, if not dying, and we'll just have to see in which direction the blogs and those who read them go. Once again, I love visits and comments, but I want no one to feel obligated to visit or comment, nor do I want anyone to feel guilty for not visiting or commenting. Capice?
Yes, mam.
ReplyDeleteVisiting because I like it, not because I feel obligated!
ReplyDeleteMethinks thou dost worry too much! I have started a blog roll and now only come by when you post. It saves a lot of checking in! Your count may go way down now!! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there are many like me who visit, and read, maybe say a prayer or two when it's requested, and then tiptoe away quietly until next time -- but we love coming by. It's like sittiing quietly in a back pew and slipping away after the service :-)
ReplyDeleteHLC captures a lot of my experience. Knowing your sense of humor I assumed you were being playful in the previous post.
ReplyDeleteI get a lot fewer comments than I did before the whole world seemed to go to FB and am trying to adjust to that.
Amelia, shouldn't that be, "Si, Signora"?
ReplyDeleteAll right, then, just so we understand each other.... ;o)
Now that Episcopal Cafe´stories replicate on FB and link on Twitter -we get comments in all 3 places - more readers. You might try that too. You don't have to "do" Facebook - there is some program that links them all.
ReplyDeleteIn our French Canadian family, I would speak English and the Canadian relatives would speak French and we all understood each other quite well. Don't see why I should change old habits. ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnn, I get more visitors than I ever dreamed I would have. I like the exchanges with readers, but I couldn't keep up with comments in three different places. I may continue to post links to my blog from time to time at FB. Yesterday's link worked pretty well, didn't it?
ReplyDeleteAmelia, je comprends.
I love freedom! Thus, having been given leave - to post or not - I'm posting, just for the fun of it!
ReplyDeleteI too will never fit with twitter. And facebook... nope, not for me!
Even if "blogging dies" - what does that mean? I suppose if it can die, it can resurrect as well. Samsara!
Grandmere, call off your goons!
ReplyDeleteYes, I like visiting your blog, only please don't hit me again!
TheraP, lovely. That's the spirit.
ReplyDeleteCounterlight, see. Sending the goons worked. You're here.
I consider this blog a ¨quality control¨ marker...I can tell when I´m still being civilized or not...lots of margin (my favorite) after years of living in the campo.
ReplyDeleteLen, LOL! I'll surely let you know when you drift into "uncivilized" behavior. What an honor to have my blog designated as your "quality control" marker. Is there a plaque?
ReplyDeleteComments on my posts have dried up too. ;;sigh;; It may be time to move on.
ReplyDeleteFWIW
jimB
Only a couple of my friends ever read my blog. I read yours at least once a day but almost never comment. I really appreciate Doug's jokes and your willingness to pass them along. I have a summer acquaintance who asked me to send jokes regularly because he has a dialup connection and surfing takes too long. Living in the boondocks has its advantages and disadvantages.
ReplyDeleteJim and Piskie, I think about what my life would have been like without blogs, and I believe I'd be much the worse off. At certain steps along the way in the last few years, blogs and blogging helped save my sanity. And I'd have missed out on meeting all the lovely people.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate my humor man, Doug, and others who send jokes and serious stuff my way. I couldn't do the blog without them
Mimi and Jim, please don't stop. I visit often but many times don't comment because I don't feel I can add to what you two apt bloggers have already said.
ReplyDeleteAiredale, don't worry. I'm not stopping now or soon.
ReplyDeleteI think blogging is changing. I am getting more visits on mine, but only gradually. People change their tastes and move on, but the ones who stay often times can become online friends.
ReplyDeleteNobody talks to bloggers anymore. You get the odd comment from faithful regulars but even they don't engage in discussion anymore. But, as you say, the hits remain the same. We have become an entertainment.
ReplyDeleteWe have become an entertainment.
ReplyDeleteWell, maybe that's not entirely a bad thing, MadPriest. We could have become something much worse - idolators, murderers, thieves, adulterers...breaking the commandments willy-nilly.
Grandpère wants me to make money off blogging for all the time I spend on the computer.
I've only been blogging for three years and never did the number counter thing. Reading blogs is now part of my daily habits; I am always sad when someone decides to quit blogging. I do FB but only in the evening if at all -- I can let several days go by.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between blogging and FB is the difference between a good long investigative article (the way they used to be in the Atlantic and sometimes you get in the New Yorker) and a news article in US Today.
Or, in the case of Wounded Bird, more like the National Enquirer.
ReplyDeleteCaminante, although I subscribe to a counter, I never blogged for the numbers, either. And I have no plan, except that, if I have a target audience, it's the small number of readers from my local territory. Of course, I hope that the posts will appeal to a wider audience.
ReplyDeleteMadPriest, to which written media outlet would you compare OCICBW?
And lets not forget that "entertainment" has many different meanings.
Oh, I don't even have to think about that.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely "Viz Comic"
http://www.viz.co.uk/
That works for me, MadPriest. Did you purchase The Coucil Gritter and The Magna Fartlet and go to the book signings in your area? Shame on you, if you didn't.
ReplyDeleteAnd see. We're having a lovely (gasp!) "discussion". Of course, some might call it an "entertainment". Depends upon one's POV.