As most of you know Google Reader is soon coming to an end. To some this can be devastating. To others, we improvise and find other ways to keep our readers in tact (BlogLovin’, what have you). And then there’s others who took off Google Reader from their sites months / years ago and never really cared. Either way, this whole “numbers” thing really had me thinking. Why do I blog?
When I first started up my blog almost two years ago I was going through a great change in my life of getting married to my best friend and I wanted to document it. I was never very good at keeping consistent journal entries and turned to the Internet, a space where I consume so much of my time, as the next best option. Within weeks of starting I really just found a passion for blogging – the community, the writing, the inspirations I found from other bloggers and within myself.

And as blogging is continuing to be seen as this massive platform for other potential opportunities (writing your own book, becoming a spokesperson for clothing lines, starting your own line, getting your own television show) so many have turned to blogger for their chance. I would be lying if I were to say that numbers didn’t matter to me. Don’t get me wrong, numbers aren’t everything but there is just something so exciting when you sign into blogger and see that you have gone up another reader. That’s another person who enjoys coming to your site, loves reading what you have to say, what you have to show to the world. Who doesn’t want that, to feel that their voice matters? So yes, numbers can matter if you are really wanting to take your blog somewhere “special”.
Where am I going with this? Of course I would love if I could really turn this here blog into a mini business. To make it my big platform into bigger and better things. But more importantly I don’t want to loose that sense of community and being inspired from one another. So going back to Google Reader…
Is it just me or does it seem like ever since Google Reader announced that it will be removing this feature within the coming months that blogging has just changed? It’s almost as if we are all throwing in the towel and giving up on blogging. A lot of people don’t seem to be posting as much, commenting as much (all of which I’m guilty of as well). Instead of building each other up there’s so much contention of comparison and breaking each other apart.

I guess what I’m getting at is, why do we blog? What are our goals?
Don’t loose that first initial passion that I know we all had / have.