[stylist] Info on Sites

Wed Mar 3 20:38:03 UTC 2010

Hi All,

"Useless" was a strong word to use to describe a blog. It was meant to 
provoke a reaction. Mission accomplished. The usefulness of a blog will 
depend on what you want to accomplish. Using a blog as a journal is great if 
you want to reach only a select group of readers. Nothing wrong with that. 
Besides, it is always good writing practice.

Let me clarify what I was saying. I think it is very unlikely a blog will 
advance a writing career. Don't expect a blog to get hundreds of readers. 
Don't expect to contact hundreds of people. Don't expect many comments.

As I mentioned, numerous factors contribute to the success of a blog. 
Networking is only one, and I think its effectiveness is not guaranteed. You 
also need to consider the popularity of the topic you are writing about, 
frequency of updates, and ranking on search engines.

Neil
--------------------------------------------------
From: "loristay" <loristay at aol.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2010 12:05 PM
To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] Info on Sites

> A blog is only as useful as you make it. I agree with Allison on this one. 
> If you need to use the blog to network, then you have to invite more 
> people to take a look at it. Eventually they will invite others, but 
> sometimes these things are slow to take off. I keep a journal, but don't 
> put it on the net. Many people these days feel they must. Unless you are 
> getting feedback, private journal entries don't belong on the net but 
> Blogs are useful for expressing your opinion, starting movements, getting 
> others familiar with your point of view. The networking comes later as you 
> become known.
> Lori
>
> On Mar 3, 2010, at 1:33:31 AM, "Allison Nastoff" <anastoff at wi.rr.com> 
> wrote:
>
> From:   "Allison Nastoff" <anastoff at wi.rr.com>
> Subject:    Re: [stylist] Info on Sites
> Date:   March 3, 2010 1:33:31 AM EST
> To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
> Hello all,
> I am not a writing expert like all of you are since I do so much
> writing for my college classes that I don't have time to write
> anything for publication. However I would like to disagree with
> the view that blogs are useless. I have a blog on livejournal.
> It is pretty informal and is mostly rambling about my guide dog
> and my college experiences. It is definitely true that blogs
> don't get many visitors. Except for the people who I friended on
> livejournal--which is about 15 people I think, and a few offline
> friends I have mentioned my blog to, I don't think anyone reads
> it. I will also be the first to admit that since it is self
> published, my quality standards aren't always the highest.
> However as bad as blogs are for networking, they are a wonderful
> place to express your thoughts and feelings, which could
> eventually be refined and expressed in a publishable form.
> Like I said, besides this blog, the only writing I have done
> lately has been school papers. However, as a Journalism major
> who might consider being a freelance writer after college, it
> will be a lot of fun to go back through my blog which I am sure
> will be full of ideas for experiences worth writing about in a
> publishable form, like guide dog issues, and advocacy.
> So even though I am not an expert, based on my own experience
> with blogs I want to encourage people to write blogs, just for a
> fun creative outlet if nothing else.
> Just my opinion. (smile)
> Allison Nastoff
>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Neil Butters" <neil.butters at sympatico.ca
>>To: <stylist at nfbnet.org
>>Date sent: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 20:15:44 -0500
>>Subject: [stylist] Info on Sites
>
>>Hello All,
>
>>I am a little late with a response to Judith's post concerning
> the usefulness of social networking and blogs. In my experience,
> blogs are useless for networking.
>
>>I wrote a blog for over a year and averaged maybe 2 or 3 visitors
> a week. I never received comments. I didn't get any jobs or
> meet anyone. I "advertised" the blog on several directories, but
> I don't have a Facebook page, so that was the extent of my
> advertising. Working against me as well was the topic:
> pharmacology and toxicology (although I wrote it for a general
> audience).
>
>>I think there are very few blog success stories relative to the
> number of blogs. I think popularity and usefulness are dependent
> on many factors, such as topic, promotion, SEO, etc.
>
>>I also question the usefulness of blogs as writing samples
> because they are self-published, and are therefore not subject to
> critique or the challenges of being good enough for publication.
>
>>Neil
>
>
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