Editorial: Blogs of all style and personalities

Free online blog services have definitely made it easy for the common man on the street to start off with online publishing. What was it that I said? Online publishing. Blogs are essentially online publications, which put the power of pushing out information into the hands of people like us. Given the power, what do we choose to do with it?

Some of the more successful blogs adopt a reader-centric approach, choosing to display useful information to the reader. News sites are particularly popular in this aspect. With online publishing being a mere extension of their mastery in publishing, they are able to churn out highly coveted content which boosts their readership.

The rest of us treat online publishing as an online diary of our daily lives, documenting our individual actions. Though there is nothing wrong with that, the chances of it being the next web phenomenon is even lower than finding a cheque for a million dollars in your desk drawer! Your blog would sadly be visited by only close friends and relatives, whom are probably just about the only people who would give a damn about your daily life routine. Why would a visitor to your site be interested in the fact that you had coffee for breakfast this morning, or that you have gained another inch on your waist?

However, all is not lost. As all famous authors have mentioned, writing requires you to have an audience. With an audience in mind, you are able to focus your essays towards entertaining, or even inform the target audience, instead of just plain old ranting. So how could you go about improving your blog? Adding your personal thoughts towards what you see, touch, feel, hear are but small steps in pulling in new people who are intrigued by your piece of writing. Perhaps you have a strong political opinion regarding George W. Bush (I certainly have!). Or your passion for plants was deeply rooted (pun intended/unintended) in your childhood fantasy?

Its time to dig out your long dusty blogs, and give it a complete make-over. Who knows, you might become the next to be Slashdotted!

Slashdot is the IT world's leading online publication, published in a blog-like form. It has so many subscribers that any outside links that it refers to gets overwhelmed, which is known as being "Slashdotted".