11 Reasons Why People Blog

Written by Jeff Bullas - View Comments
Categories: Blog, Blogging


Overnight I had a comment left on my blog by Howard, which caught my attention more than normal as I thought that he was giving blogs a bagging, as he wrote that “Blogs are a VERY old idea” and with it a link to a post titled Why Do You Blog Poll Results

“40, 000 Year Old Blog Discovered In Australia“.

The article was about the ancient practice of  rock engraving also known as ‘Petroglyphs’ which are the ancient practice of scraping and chipping a pictogram on rocks to tell a story.

The essence of his blog is that the primal human drive to

  • Tell a story
  • State opinions
  • Sell wares

has not changed, as the platform to deliver the tale is not just a rock but some magical technology called the Internet which can spread a multimedia rich story around the world in milliseconds. This drive to share and sell will not be going away anytime soon, just the means to do so will continue to morph and evolve.

In February I wanted to find out from my readers on why ‘they’ blog and I must say I am surprised by the results. As part of the post I included a poll which asked people to vote. It included a list of 11 reasons, which I had developed after doing research about all the reasons that I could find for the blogging primal drive.

377 people voted so far with the results shown below.

Why Do You Blog Poll Results

The results are very close with “Sharing with others‘  coming out ahead of  ‘Write about your passion‘ with ‘Business‘ third and ‘Self expression‘ 4th and in 5th place ‘Put forward new ideas‘.

The surprising result is that only 2.9% blogged for money. So maybe we are not all greedy capitalists but just frustrated amatuer writers who now have a platform and soapbox to tell our story about our passion… which I think makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and a little more positive about the human race.

What do you think?

Note: If you still want to vote, visit the poll and place your vote.. here



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  • http://www.theorganicview.com OrganicGuru

    I think that is an interesting concept. People do like to socialize and express their opinions. Perhaps we are not an anti-social society but have simply evolved into a society that chooses to utilize technology in order to do so. Great post!

  • http://www.ondemandsales.com Amy Trapp

    Thanks for the post! I would agree and say that not only are we not anti-social, but perhaps uber-social. Technology has allowed everyone to stay in contact and re-connect with individuals in such a way that privacy has become an issue (whether everyone recognizes it as an issue or not).

  • http://www.greggmorris.com/curated-stories-june-8-2010 Storytelling Social Media Marketing PR Business & Technology Curated Stories June 8, 2010

    [...] 11 Reasons Why People Blog Published: June 7, 2010 Source: Jeffbullas's Blog Overnight I had a comment left on my blog by Howard, which caught my attention more than normal as I thought that he was giving blogs a bagging, as he wrote that “Blogs are a VERY old idea” and with it a li… [...]

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    [...] 11 Reasons Why People Blog (via Jeffbullas’s Blog) Posted on June 9, 2010 by Brian Currin Overnight I had a comment left on my blog by Howard, which caught my attention more than normal as I thought that he was giving blogs a bagging, as he wrote that "Blogs are a VERY old idea" and with it a link to a post titled "40, 000 Year Old Blog Discovered In Australia". The article was about the ancient practice of  rock engraving also known as 'Petroglyphs' which are the ancient practice of scraping and chipping a pictogram on rocks to tell … Read More [...]

  • http://briancurrin.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/11-reasons-why-people-blog-via-jeffbullass-blog/ 11 Reasons Why People Blog (via Jeffbullas’s Blog) « Brian Currin

    [...] PDRTJS_settings_1020078_post_3011 = { "id" : "1020078", "unique_id" : "wp-post-3011", "title" : "11+Reasons+Why+People+Blog+%28via+Jeffbullas%27s+Blog%29", "item_id" : "_post_3011", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Fbriancurrin.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F06%2F09%2F11-reasons-why-people-blog-via-jeffbullass-blog%2F" } Overnight I had a comment left on my blog by Howard, which caught my attention more than normal as I thought that he was giving blogs a bagging, as he wrote that "Blogs are a VERY old idea" and with it a link to a post titled "40, 000 Year Old Blog Discovered In Australia". The article was about the ancient practice of  rock engraving also known as 'Petroglyphs' which are the ancient practice of scraping and chipping a pictogram on rocks to tell … Read More [...]

  • HO

    Thanks for the mention Jeff. Pleased to meet with folks in Toronto interested in cost effective social media marketing campaigns.

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    [...] This will be of interest to readers as a lot of them will have participated and will want see the results summarized and commented on. An example for this suggestion is a follow up to the ‘Why do you Blog Post and was ‘11 Reasons Why People Blog‘. [...]

  • http://twitter.com/flipbooks/status/18324625420 Blair Semenoff

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  • http://www.rockytravel.net Michela

    blogging is am amazing tool that help people not only socializing but also learning from others and improve their knowledge and skills. In my opinin a great contribution to personal growth !

  • http://whydoweblog.com/2010/09/hello-world/ What is the Why Do We Blog Project? | Why Do We Blog?

    [...] Blogger Jeff Bullas recently surveyed almost 400 bloggers asking  Why Do You Blog? Here is his post with the results: http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/06/07/11-reasons-why-people-blog/ [...]

  • http://www.marciaforbes.com Marcia A. Forbes

    Thanks Jeff. I’m finding your blogs quite infomative and am eager to see how bloggers in Jamaica stack up against your poll findings re why people blog. Plan to run a survey via my website.

    Last week @JamaicaPegasus Hotel hosted the Caribbean’s largest tweetup with almost 300 in attendance. About half of the attendees responding to a questionnaire I designed and gave out which included an open-ended item re why they tweet. After reading one of your blogs re blogging before tweeting, I figure I’m doing things backways.

    Keep up your very engaging blogs which I’m now not likely to miss since I’m following you on Twitter.

    Regards,
    @marciaforbes
    http://www.marciaforbes.com
    marcia@marciaforbes.com

  • http://gagapeople.blogspot.com/ Lee Harth

    Great to know people are not always thinkin of money.
    I just love blogging because i love info and putting my view forward.
    Great post!

  • @webmindset

    I blog to keep my journalism school chops fresh… and, I communicate far better in writing.

  • http://yourchildwillread.com Paula Lee Bright

    Your post made me very happy!

    I’m a teacher by trade, and love storytelling, both the telling and the listening. Kids will do almost anything for a story, and I’m including students up in high school as well.

    We don’t lose that joy…sometimes we just forget about it, I think!

    Stories and talking and telling and writing are the best things in the world to hone a new reader’s skills, and probably always have been.

    As a child, my books and stories kept me happy, and as an adult my reading continues to do so. How sad I am for some who never learned to love it, for they’ve missed some fascinating times!

    I get great joy from helping a child with a reading problem to get past it and to move into their rightful place as a reader and a writer.

    And it looks like in the early days, they felt the same way.

    Great post, kiddo!

  • http://www.BeckyCortino.info Becky Cortino

    Interesting results to your survey, Jeff! Kind of supports the referenced notion of blogging being one of the first forms of social media, especially as evidenced by respondents’ resounding rationale. Great analogy to ancient communication — so true, developing a means of recording and sharing information and observations.

  • http://twitter.com/AndreVarga Andre Varga

    As Steve Levitt says: “It´s all about incentives!” :)

  • http://twitter.com/DawgBlogger jana rade

    Interesting, would have thought more people were blogging to make money :-)

  • http://twitter.com/irajcohen Ira J Cohen

    I think making more money is more a result of blogging than the reason for blogging.  Perhaps another survey asking if blogging results in making more money?

  • http://twitter.com/777productions Deon Fialkov

    What’s the main difference between a blog and a website.  I have a website, but I’m looking to change from my current css, html-design to joomla or wordpress so that people can comment, however I’m worried that I will have randoms trolling or spamming as part of the comments option – can the options be moderated according to strict guidelines or do I have to wait for the possible insult/spam before deleting it?

  • http://www.phillipandrewdodd.com Phillip Dodd

    I would think the same thing, Jana! I would vote for that one myself… although I’d like to say that I could vote for “write about my passion”.  I get too caught up in the “optimization” though!

  • http://www.phillipandrewdodd.com Phillip Dodd

    I’ve implemented the Disqus commenting system on my blog and have found that I get little to no spam. Then again, I haven’t been blogging that long, so it’s possible that I’m just not on the spam-radar ;)

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