Today is a big day for me... I decided to finally start a blog (again) only this time I mean it; not because it’s time, but because it’s overdue… I may have jumped the shark with blogging in lieu of all the Geocities (Intellectual Confusion and Sonic Intoxication) activity I did in High School, and surely with the Looks Cool (entrapy.ismad.com) effort I mustered in college… I may have been ahead then, but now I’m behind, way behind. The proof is in the pudding, given the fact that Geocities and Looks Cool are both long gone now, and I barely understand WordPress or HTML. Obviously, I had to act sooner or later, or risk winding up shooing kids to get off my lawn in my late 20s, and then turn into Mr. Roper by 30. NAY, I say!
In order to readjust and dive back into the fray, I needed to do extensive research; what changed, evolved, or democratized since I’ve become a mere observer and not a participant… does a world need another blogger… and exactly how many blogs are there in the world?
Over a year ago the Blog Herald estimated there was roughly 185.6 million (adding those tracked by Technorati and The China Internet Network Information Center). Indeed, staggering numbers, but a year old none the less; so let’s estimate a modest growth of 10%... that number is now 204.2 million! However, with the dawn of microblogging and social networking by way of Twitter and Facebook, those taking advantage of the virtual soapbox presented by the Web 2.0 world has to grow as exponentially (a la Moore’s Law) and linearly to the growth of those two sites alone... which as we know has been uncanny (read: Twitter.com Quadruples to 17 Million U.S. Visitors in Last Two Months).
I would be remiss if i were not to blame my profession for the hiatus, since right after college I was hired into corporate PR and top tier media relations work for Fortune 500 clients and some of the world’s top C-levels… and, as we recently learned, those folks are STILL holding out not just on social media but also blogs (read: Heads of top U.S. companies snub blogs, Facebook: study, with the key finding that not a single Fortune 100 CEO had a blog). Monkey see, monkey do, I guess, but at least there are others behind me; even if they are twice my age.
Today, I stand up and take my rightful place on the babbling mountain that is the blogosphere. Tonight, I embark on my own leg of the 400m relay that is Web 2.0. Tomorrow… well, we’ll see about tomorrow, I have a very busy day.
Here we are, (am I really going to do this? seems like I already am), so strap yourself in, don’t hold your breath, and please don’t hang on every word… after all, who am I anyway?
