Fifteen Years of Blogging
I started my blog in June 2006 — not quite the dawn of the Blog Era, but definitely the early morning. Since then I’ve quit a lot of things — jobs, yoga, Facebook, alcohol — but through it all, and despite repeated reports of blogging’s demise, I’ve kept right on writing and publishing blog posts. Daily at first, and now at least twice a week: fifteen years, 3,225 posts in all.
I’ve never made a cent from my blog: no ads, no sponsored posts, no merch. I’ve stubbornly stayed within my own narrow lane, writing about names, brands, and the language of commerce, subjects sadly lacking the drawing power of, say, food or fashion. I rarely have more than 500 site visits a day. I have just under 900 followers on Feedly, the news and blog aggregator.
“Niche” is one way to describe my blog. “Folly” is another.
So why do I still do it?
In the beginning, I was a blogging skeptic. I had my eyeroll firmly in place one evening in April 2006, when I attended a presentation on blogging offered by a professional organization I belonged to. The presenter was enthusiastic, but I wasn’t an easy convert. Blogging sounded to me like a lot of work for very little reward. I’d been writing for money most of my adult life: Now I was supposed to give it away? Fat chance.
