by Brady Rutgarr

Created on: April 28, 2009

To blog or not to blog, that is the question. But before that, what is blogging?

For those of you who may not know, blogging is a method of publicizing one's thoughts and opinions in a very informal way on the internet. Think of it as something similar to having your very own bulletin board where people can post their praises in the form of comments, if you let them that is.

There are many different reasons why someone may choose to blog, there are even more things that one may choose to blog about. The most successful blogs seem to have relatively frequent posts that cover a distinct range of topics. Some choose to post rants about current events, other bloggers, or anything else that pops into their heads at the time of the post. Others choose constructive topics and try to educate people on the topic of their interest. Another common reason that people choose to blog is to try to make money by serving up ads such as those in Google's Adsense program and other types of a similar nature.

Things to consider when thinking about starting up a blog include not only devoting the time necessary to write quality posts on a regular basis, but also promoting your blog so that other people will start reading it. This may not be necessary if you only intend to write about family activities for relatives who may be geographically separated, but regardless of what you're blogging about, another consideration is how much information you are comfortable posting on the internet.

Posting personal pictures and information can be dangerous. Some parents who blog choose clever nicknames for their children, never posting real names at all. Taking this one step further, they may wish to tell their children their "blog nickname" and inform them that if a stranger ever approaches and calls them by that name they should notify a trusted adult immediately.

In truth, there are many reasons people choose to blog, and there are just as many reasons why others choose to avoid it. If you aren't planning on blogging as a way to get rich quick, or as a way to make instant internet friends without any promotion grunt work, blogging may work out for you. If you can post regularly and write compelling content, you will find that people all over the world may end up stopping by to say hello. You will also watch some of those same people stop by less and less frequently as things in their own life take precedence over surfing the web.

Blogging has its ups and downs, just like anything else. It isn't necessarily a bad idea, in general, as long as your intentions and expectations are in the right place.

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