Why The Hell Would You Start A Blog?

It's an important question considering that I just started one. There are already so many great ones out there covering so many topics. The conventional wisdom right now is to wait until you have some sort of specific acumen, some sort of differentiation that sets you apart from the more experienced and capable thinkers out there.

Don't forget to mention that you have to find people who will somehow find the damn thing, read it somewhat consistently, enjoy it so much that they will virally market the new product, and finally those people must take the aforementioned course. There are millions of bloggers who update daily and hundreds of millions of failed, rotting corpses of thought that at some point had an author willing to think and write. In other words, there is no reason to start a blog.

Unless you have that differentiation, that uniqueness, that remarkable quality that the great Seth Godin harps on so fervently. Not only do you need that great marketable product that can satisfy the wants of various, already-busy online readers: you need a plan. Hell, starting a blog from stratch might be tougher than starting a business from stratch, especially if you do derivatives.

But back to the question: why would I start a blog? Because there's an audience for it? Because I feel some intrinsic or worldly requirement to? Or just because everytime I think of something stupid I need the rest of the world to laugh half-heartedly with me? Maybe I need to start a blog to understand why I would need to start a blog.

Maybe I'm too afraid to know the answer quite yet. Do not consider this an experiment, consider it to be more of an evaluation. Even if you don't do that, please at least consider it to be something.

There I played the sympathy card. Send this to a "friend."