Problogger recently wrote a post about a ‘Video Group Project‘ - an idea I found pretty interesting. Although being someone that is too lazy to buy and then find out how to work a camera (and thus involve myself in video-blogging), I thought the topic of the Group Project was an interesting one, one that could be followed by anyone. Anyways, here’s my text response to the Project, where the topic was “Why I Blog”

1) I Blog To Express My Thoughts

I always thought that having a diary where I stored thoughts was a bit too chick-like for me; having an online blog just seems a lot better, even though it’s essentially the same thing :P. Having a place that will stay up as long as I keep it up is pretty cool, especially as at any time I can go back through my archives and see what I was doing a day, a week, a month ago. I can also keep track of thoughts I had; rather than forgetting the next killer idea I thought of, I can write it down on my blog and it will stay there unless someone deletes it. Far better than writing stuff down on scraps of paper that will inevitably get lost :)

2) I Blog To Network

Apart from expressing yourself, blogging puts you in front of thousands of people if you market it correctly… people with similar aims to yourself, and people that you’ll find extremely interesting and helpful to talk with. By blogging, I provide similar minded people with a means to see what I’m capable of and easily approach me if they want to talk about anything, either business or just to build a relationship. I have met countless numbers of people through blogging, people that I wouldn’t have otherwise - starting a blog is one of the best things I ever did to get my name out there in the online business world and the relationships I have established in the industry - ranging with some of the smallest people around (in terms of power) and even some of the “A-listers” will be of extreme help in the long run.

3) I Blog To Make Money

Although I didn’t make a cent from my first couple of months blogging, the money is slowly beginning to pour in - blogging is becoming a more and more profitable venture. The original goal was just to pay off hosting, however nowadays I earn enough to do far more than that, and I have no doubt that this will increase as the various metrics of the blog do so as well. While breaking into the “Problogger” mould (earning a full time living off a blog) is near impossible, most will be content to make a few hundred dollars off a blog that they own, and now they can do that.

4) Blogs are easier, and cooler than normal websites.

I’ve always wanted to run a website online… the problem is, I have huge deficiencies in both creating design and tweaking code. With the amount of free, extremely customizable themes out there, as well as some killer premium ones (like the Premium News themes for example), I can develop a decent looking website without ever having to touch a single line of HTML (or little of it, if needed); with simple content management systems like Wordpress, you’ll soon find yourself loving blogging. Also, a blog is usually just so much cooler than your average website - it’s hard to make a website look anywhere half as good as a highly pimped out blog.

Those are my reasons; how about you? Why do you blog?