Posted on 11 Comments on Blork Blog: The Survey

Blork Blog: The Survey

While plugging away at this blog over the past five years, I periodically fall into a bit of a slump where I feel like the whole thing is a big waste of time, or that I’m not writing very well, or that I’m just shouting into an empty canyon. It’s true that I get a lot of feedback on specific posts by way of comments, but I still sometimes find myself somewhat adrift when it comes to the whole question of "why?" or at least "why continue?"

The blog has evolved a bit since its launch, but it hasn’t seen any radical changes. Lately I’ve been wondering if I consider a change of course. To help me decide — and also just because I’d like some general feedback — I’ve created a very short Zoomerang survey. I’m hoping the results (assuming, of course, that there will be results) will give me an idea of what people like or dislike about this blog.

Please take the survey. (It opens in a new window.) It’s very short — eight multiple-choice questions. It should take only one or two minutes, and is anonymous.

Update: As of March 6, 2006, the survey is closed. Thanks to the 100 people to took the survey!

11 thoughts on “Blork Blog: The Survey”

  2. It’s true, Feb and March blogging (and living) is rarely very fun. People disconnect at this time of year, and take each other for granted.

  3. Yes, it’s gotta be winter. Thoughts of packing it in (blogging) crossed my mind a couple times in the past couple weeks.

  5. The funny thing is, I thought about doing this survey more than three weeks ago, but in the past two weeks I’ve had a rush of posts, both short and long.

    But I still want people to take the survey!

  6. Yes, February is getting to me too.
    I don’t think that whether a post is short or long is what matters. What matters is that you write a complete post. That you finish your thought about what you’re saying. I don’t always agree with what you’re saying, but I enjoy reading it nonetheless. I also know that I feel like a pompous @$$hole when I read what I’ve posted a week later, but that’s OK too.

  7. Trust me, if you knew the amount of times I’ve thought about packing it in on my website (and it’s not even a blog) because of lack of feedback or response, you’d, well, pack it in too. The thing is, you’d be surprised at the number of lamers (sorry, IRC expression) who are reading every word religiously. I mean, you would be SURPRISED. I count myself among them . . . it’s just that lamers are lame and never send you email or comment on anything. That’s why they’re called lamers. I figure my website has a lamer audience of around 1,000 people, but you would never know it . . . until you threaten to shut it down.

    For suggestions, like I said in the survey, more about food, no politics at all. But I’ll bet for every me there will be an equal and opposite me . . .

  8. You want hits? I could give you that dreaded ‘True Story of Eight Below’ entry of mine. If I had known that thing would get me a couple of hundred hits per *minute* for the past week or so, I’d have published it anonymously on some Geocities page, and disowned it entirely. It seems I had underestimated how popular the topic would get, and I had also forgotten that getting tons of hits to one’s personal blog – SUCKS. Yes, you meet a few interesting new people, but you’re also exposed to hoards of jackasses who have no problem with re-copying your entire entry in their own blog or emailing you to tell you just how much you suck. “Mass” media is over-rated, I say keep your blogs intimate with true human connection, and you’ll never regret it. Frankly, it’s when blogs start getting far too impersonal (and by default more popular) that I tend to stop reading.

  9. It’s not really about hits though. It’s more about whether or not it’s interesting. I do like the personal touch on blogs, and I like the intimate nature of the medium. But I also have a desire to tell stories and have them heard (read).

  11. Blog if it interests you, and you have something to say. If people are interested, they’ll read. But like Keats said about the rose, your blog can bloom as beautifully as it will among all the other blogs on the net, but it can’t pick itself.

Comments are closed.