Dave Winer:

NY Times: "If every parent in the world has a blog, then maybe it really will be about the child rather than the parent," Ms Waldman said. "Because at that point the child is the only one who's going to read it."

BigPub fallacy #1 about blogs -- the main thing about a blog is how many people read it.

I agree with this. This blog isn't a promotional vehicle for MDJ and MWJ, or an attempt to become a name-brand pundit. It's an online journal of thoughts and feelings, stuff I would say at the water cooler if I still worked at a place that had one. (This is Oklahoma. We have faucets. They're very handy.)

That's why I disagreed with Jerry's last post:

If you look at my posting frequency, I've obviously become less and less interested in this blog over the last year or so. The fact is, like most small-time bloggers, I don't have anything unique to offer. I don't have the time or the inclination to write long pieces -- I write for a living, so writing more after I get home just doesn't appeal to me. Worse, I've lately been kicking myself about not writing any fiction, and spending my leftover writing "juice" on blogging isn't helping. Most depressing of all, I've spent so long writing stuff in which an authorial voice is a negative, I'm not sure I even have a voice of my own anymore, so I don't really have that going for me, either.

Topic-wise, I'm not interested in stirring controversy, I feel like a naif at politics, and I don't want to post slices of my life because frankly my life is as boring as yours, and it's none of your business anyway. As a white male nerd in his mid-thirties, I don't have a point of view that isn't shared by at least a million other guys. Despite my longtime Apple neepery, I'm not even much good as a Mac analyst compared to guys like Gruber. But posting other people's warmed-over links, regardless of how cool they are, has definitely lost its charm. I realized recently that if I started posting links at del.icio.us instead of here, they'd vanish without a trace because they're just like everyone else's links. I add nothing to what you'd find at Boing Boing or similar link-oriented sites.

So, that's where I am. Expect extremely sporadic posting until I figure out what I want to do with this site. It'll probably involve photography, since that's one way I do have to generate new, original content.

I didn't notice that Jerry disabled comments for that post until today, but I told him on the phone last week that I disagree with it. I don't worry that I'm saying something unique here, or building traffic (I know about four people read this, and about three more via RSS). I know some of you already found some of the links I post, but some of you haven't. I wouldn't have found Malcolm Gladwell's writings if Jerry hadn't linked to them. Not everyone reads Boing Boing or del.icio.us, or works in a big office where plenty of people share what they found on their surfing. What you like, you should mention. If you want to say something, say it. If no one cares, big whoop.

I don't follow all of Jerry's links, and I have seen some of them before, but I like knowing what catches his eye. I enjoy looking at his photographs, but if he transforms his blog into a photo-nerd blog, I'll probably just look at the pictures. I can't tell an F-stop from F-Troop. But if that's what moves him, that's what he ought to do, dang it.

The things I post are usually the things I would be talking to friends about on the phone, though I still save the most personal stuff for the private area. Sometimes I just don't get started talking about something soon enough to post it here except in a big story I never find the time to write. That's how it was with my conversion to HDTV last quarter, and with DirecTV's stated intentions to screw HDTV TiVo owners this year. I still hope to vent on that someday.

I don't know how non-Manila blogging software works, but with the in-browser editing, and especially now with cross-blog software like MarsEdit (which I'm using right now), blogging is like writing an E-mail to friends, except instead of using a mailing list, it's on the Web. People can read it or not, they can use RSS to find new entries or not, they can find it by Google if it's relevant or live perfectly happy lives never knowing about this little corner of cyberspace. I think that's fine. If people care about something I have to say, they can read it. If they don't, they're not bothered with it.

Sure, someday, I might want to put some ads on here if there are enough readers to make it worthwhile, but at present, I'm fortunate enough to have this space on the Web without worrying about such things. I get to vent, remove stuff from the front of my mind, and get on with life. I like it when people read these entries, but it's just as much fun to have them handy so I can send a link to someone instead of repeating an entire rant I formed a day or two earlier.

Don't worry about how many people are reading, or about whether or not your blog is unique, I say. Post what you want to post and don't worry about the rest. Daily, weekly, monthly - whatever works. I'm posting more these days because I changed my workstyle around some, and I'm now reading RSS news on a big Power Macintosh G5 with a big 22-inch display, not on a PowerBook. As fun as the PowerBook can be, it's a lot easier to post with a big keyboard, a mouse, and lots of screen space for extra windows.

So now I'm posting almost daily. Before that, sometimes once or twice a week. Big deal. Blogging is not something I do for other people. It's for me. I hope others enjoy it, however they come here, but I'm doing it to have the conversation. I don't want to become Andrew Sullivan.