Blogging About Blogging is a Sin

And I'm a sinner...

I'm still playing Blogshares as I mentioned a bit ago, and I have some observations to make.

First off, to set you up, I'm earning "chips" in the game by reporting dead blogs. A dead blog is a blog that hasn't been updated for at least six months. I'm using the "random blog" function to find blogs, and then visiting each blog to see when it was last updated. If it's not dead, I try to put it into a category (an "industry" for game purposes). These are my observations from that random sample of Blogshares indexed blogs (I've looked at well over 1000 blogs now, and I'm just getting started).

• There are tons of blogs with only one entry. Started, then abandoned in one fell swoop. These aren't dead blogs so much as stillborn blogs.
• If a blogger gets past that first entry, they usually go for a few weeks up to about four months. Lots of blogs I find dead after three or four months of posts.
• If the blogger makes it past four months, the odds are good that the blog is still alive. There are many exceptions, of course.
• I hate HATE Microsoft live spaces. They often don't have an easy way to tell when the blog was last updated, and most of them have so much extra garbage the pages are hard to navigate. And they all load slowly.
• I can't read the dates on any Persian blogs.
• I can read the dates on almost any non-Persian blog.
• Many people go to great lengths to make a cool-looking blog, then abandon it after a few months. Some of the best designs I've seen were those "3-4 months of posts then dead" blogs.
• Many people have no sense of design at all, and make completely unreadable blogs.
• Coming across a live blog after tons of dead blogs is like finding a fresh chocolate bar in a sea of stale candy corn. Ah... bliss.
• Blogspot blogs are usually the easiest to tell the last update on. The dates tend to be in a standard format despite language, and the site tends to load fast.
• Blogspot Beta blogs load slow and are annoying.
• Even dead blogs are sometimes interesting. Nothing so interesting I want to link to it, but sometimes I run across a blog I'll read despite its stale content.
• Videoblogs freak me out. I guess I have trouble imagining wanting to put myself on video for the whole world to see.
• Profanity is common on dead blogs, slightly less common on live ones.
• Even though I can't read dates on Persian blogs, I still keep looking at them, apparently hoping that the next one will be the exception and I'll suddenly understand Farsi.
• "Normal" bloggers update their blogs a few times a month. I have great respect for the ranks of insane bloggers who update daily or at least multiple times a week.
• If you get a 403 "Forbidden" error when going to a blog, always try again. Virtually every time I've gotten that error my second attempt got me to the blog.
• Most of Blogshares indexed dead blogs seem to date from the summer of 2004.
• A lot of people do not seem to realize that the whole world can read their posts. Either that, or they simply don't care.
• Most people cannot spell.
• If a blogger can spell, and has a profile, they are virtually always older than 30.
• Profile pages are really useful on live blogs. Blogshares tries for demographic information on all blogs: gender, language, and location. A good profile will show all three.
• There are a surprisingly large number of blogs named "my blog" or some variation of such.
• Alternating Caps (LiKe ThIs) is annoying, but can be tolerated in small amounts. Blogs that have all text in alternating caps are unreadable, and the bloggers are morons.
• The year 1385 is the current year on Persian blogs, so if I can spot a year and it's 1384 or before, it's older than six months. Ha!
• Most first blog entries are either "Hi!" or "Test". These are also the last blog entries on many blogs.