mikemchargue.com

I've been an active blogger in the past, and experienced ebb and flow in the amount that I blog, up until a year ago when i stopped completely.  There was no intentional pause, in the same way that I've never blogged intentionally.  I blog when I have something on my mind.  Prior to my year-long hiatus, this blog had built up a regular following.  I assume that's because I wrote about things that interested me, and my fellow nerds found that my random interests compatible.

It took me a long time to remember I even had a blog.  The last two months, I've been peppered with questions from people I know and emails from people I don't about why I'm not blogging any more.  I didn't have an answer.

I'm very busy personally and professionally, but that was true a year ago.  The demands of parenting aren't killing my desire to write.  I'm reading more than I did a year ago, thanks to the Kindle.  Then I realized what changed.

I got into Twitter in a big way.  I was already a pretty serious Facebook user, and the addition of Twitter acted as a sort of creative heat sink.  Any time a thought of interest comes to me, I throw it out to the world in an embryonic 149 characters--then move on.  Facebook and Twitter are more than adequate for sharing links I find interesting, so that killed the rest of my blog content.

I still read blogs more than I read Facebook and Twitter.  Unlike so many of my ilk (nerds in marketing) I use Facebook and Twitter as very personal communication mediums.  I personally know every one on my Facebook friends list, and the people I follow on Twitter are friends as well (aside from a dozen or so people who interest me that I don't know).

That's shifted my online life in a subtle way.  I still draw from the well of thinking by reading people's blogs, but I then share back only with my tribe.  I'm not sharing things with the larger web via my blog (and by extension, Google).  Some of my older posts still get a lot of traffic because they are tech issues that people are looking for answers on.

How common is this socialification of minor-league bloggers?  How do you maintain the mental discipline to talk to your tribe and give back to the world at large.

It's tough stuff.