Blogging

Everybody blogs nowadays. Really, having your personal or professional blog is considered comme il faut in the learned circles and not running one is looked down upon and is deemed something of a faut pas. At the end of last year the number of blogs on the net has reached an unfathomable figure of 126 million. So why is it so popular?

I believe we can identify the following reasons why one might start and run a blog (these are obviously not mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustible, but a good start, in my opinion):

• you are bored and stuck in a job you don't enjoy, so is there a better way to while away your time than pouring out your negative emotions and frustrations to the anonymous, unsuspecting and all accepting Internet audience?
• you have to do it. If you are a student and your Information Systems professor makes it a requirement to pass a class - tough for you. If you must lead a blog at work because your boss tells you so - well, at least you get paid. Quality will suffer, relationships will sour and your creative muse will take a break, but hey - life's not a tray of cupcakes in general.
• you are not sure why you are doing it, but everyone around has one, so why not? Nobody has erased the herd instinct from the list of human motivators and believe me - it's powerful.
• you consider it is a good idea to promote yourself in the virtual world and your blog is a part of your personal brand.
• you are used to having a diary, it is a way to organize your thoughts and a blog is just a different format of what you used to do anyway.
• you want to practice your writing and story-telling skills. Blogging is a playground and a jumpboard for something bigger later.
• your blog is a form of public accountability. Once you commit something to the internet community, it will be more difficult for you to slack. Think about the 365-day blog that Julie had in that marvelous movie Julie & Julia.
• you run a business and you want to gain direct contact with your customers. In addition to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, blogging is a powerful tool of reaching out to thousands of people instantaneously. 
• no publishing house will take your masterpieces for mass reproduction, and blogging is free and reaches the audience instantly. This is a perfect retreat for unrecognized writers, poets and paper-wasters.
• you genuinely like writing and you have a lot to convey to the world. Your contributions are valued and you have followers who regularly check up on the most recent posts. Proliferous bloggers get attention and traffic, generating even more interest to their persona that way.

Why do you (would you) have a blog? What reasons are missing in my list?