Made the switch

I subscribe to a lot of blogs.

A LOT of blogs.

Knitting blogs, legal blogs, foodie blogs, home decoration blogs, technology blogs....

I had been using Bloglines to manage my subscriptions, but it was pretty cumbersome and sometimes just didn't work. (one post showing up several times, some posts not showing up at all....)

I just switched to Google Reader, and I like it a lot. The interface is a lot easier to use. I do wish I could save posts the way I did in Bloglines, but it seems that feature will be going away with Bloglines Beta, and it's easy enough to use del.icio.us instead.

Blogger Demographics- interesting study

I stumbled across a Pew Internet & American Life Project study titled "Bloggers: A portrait of the internet's new storytellers (it's a PDF) while doing research for my paper. (Found the link through anthropology.net).

The demographics aren't earth-shattering, but I find the whole blog phenomenon fascinating. Check it out if you're curious!

What does this mean?

One of my favorite blogs is Stay of Execution, written by a former lawyer-turned-sailing-coach who lives in Portland, Maine.

Apparently one of her readers is irked:

"An anonymous reader has announced that s/he will no longer be reading this blog because 'the narrative arc has stalled.'"

What the heck does that mean?

I like the author's post in response, but it makes me think about blogging and what it means and why I do it.

I blog because I think it's funny. I treat it like the paper journal I can never find that I feel I should be filling with deep intimate secrets. It's a place where I can dump whatever happens to be on my mind. It's a way for me to record my knitting hobby and to connect with like minded fiber addicts. I know it's silly. I don't pretend to have anything useful to say, much less anything entertaining, important, instructive, or anything else. I do this for me and I like that.

I find it fascinating that someone stops reading a personal blog because "the narrative arc has stalled." Why does this person think he's entitled to a narrative arc from this blogger? It's not like she's writing for his entertainment. People don't have narrative arcs, people have lives. Those lives usually involve jobs, relationships, stressors... Most people are not professional writers who live to chronicle their narrative arcs for the entertainment of anonymous blog readers. Life gets in the way. The reality of blogging for most of us is that there just isn't a narrative arc. Really, do lives have narrative arcs? I don't think they do. People live, stuff happens, but is it "narrative"? Yes, you can get in a funk or be on top of the world, but is that "stalling" of the narrative arc?

I also find it fascinating that someone who wants to stop reading because "the narrative arc has stalled" feels the need to tell the writer. Who does this guy think he is? Why does he think the writer will care that he has stopped reading? Especially for such an inane reason? What purpose has this notice served, other than giving me something to write about? People are so weird.