Everything Pink

Check out the new new blog on my blog list. "Everythink Pink" is for my niece who insists that pink is the best color despite me tellling her that pink is gross and yucky. She'll be six soon. Check out what she has to say.

Top Ten ways to convince people to comment on your blog

Number 1, comment on theirs—okay, a little obvious I know, but hey it’s only the first tip. Maybe they’ll get better. (That was not a promise).

Number 2, don’t post for at least a month—granted the only comments you’ll receive will be something along the lines of “Why won’t you post?” But that is something, isn’t it?

Number 3, call up your friends and threaten them—okay, that’s a little extreme, but I have to come up with ten of these. Oh yeah, this would include questioning the intelligence of your readers or the subtle, unspoken, I just won’t comment on yours till you do (see number 1). On a side note, promising not to post if they don’t comment has not been proven effective.

Number 4, debate something controversial—everyone likes to argue. A caution though, it needs to be something people care about. “I hate blogs!” is a little too overused and probably won’t earn you anything more than a few rolled eyes. “I believe The Message to be the leading authority of inspired Scriptures,” however, might draw some attention.

Number 5, Mention names—for some reason everyone likes to see their name in print. Or perhaps they just feel duty bound to respond in light of the recognition. At least it worked with Josh, Rebecca, Valinda, Chelsie, Brittany, etc.

Number 6, write a very short post—it works for RuthAnn anyway (see number 5).

Number 7, be somebody important—okay there’s not a whole lot you can do about this if you’re not, but it’s inevitable, the blogs that are read most widely are commented on most frequently.

Number 8, use big words—I’m not actually convinced of this being the case, but Clint (see number 5) seems to think so, and Chelsie (see number 5 again) tends to comment excessively on word usage.

Number 9, write posts that are not even remotely related to anything “normal” people would find blogworthy, and then make your entry interactive. Post about parenthetical usage, trash, hair gel, starburst, abstraction, swedish fish, blog definitions, bulletin boards, and bald heads. (Can you match the random topic to the owner of the blog?)

Number 10, and for some reason the most popular. Give people an opportunity to talk about themselves—something along the lines of “what is your opinion of….?” Or “what is your favorite….?” What self-absorbed people we have become, but think about it.

And now it’s your turn, what do you think should be the eleventh tip for securing blog comments…..

A look at blogdom

Everyone, it seems, feel they have a purpose different from everyone else. They each have a unique claim, a different slant. In their desire to be like everyone else and have a blog, they are determined to be different. Strange what individual replicas we have become.

Everyone made their vow.

You have Josh, who said from the start that he would not be random. Is it truly random-free or has he redefined randomness? You can attribute an intentional purpose and deeper meaning to anything. Thus, I could take the same argument and claim no one is random.

Then you have Brittany who vowed that she hates writing and will continue to hate writing. My question--will she admit when she stops hating writing? In her defense—Long live exclamation points!!

Then there's Chelsie who, whether she has verbalized it or not, has decided only to write when she has something profound to say. No one can be that remarkable. So of course, that is only going to work if, like randomness, you redefine "profound."

And there are a number who claim they have nothing significant to say, but inwardly they beg for someone to see what they have said as significant.

You have bloggers that vow they will write faithfully and bloggers that vow they will write unfaithfully.

You have bloggers that vow they will change the world and bloggers that have yet to determine what needs to change about the world.

Justin comes close to contributing an original slant with his blog. Unfortunately, people seem to run with his ideas. Then they write their own posts giving their view on the same topic. And what may have been an original idea is overshadowed by the masses. Maybe if he would speak up…

So, the pressure is on. In our effort to add something new and exciting to the blog world, we have all made promises we can't keep. We will be individual! All of us! Yet, in our own way, we are all uniquely the same.

And what about me? Well, I vowed I would never write about blogs. I'm not even going to make excuses.

I would have commented on RuthAnn's blog, but I honestly don't know what to say. Her post are so diverse (not only in content, but in tone and writing style) that I could easily be convinced she has more than one person writing on hers. I leave it there. I couldn't think what to say...so maybe there is individualism on the blogfront.