You are going to read a magazine article about five people who each write a personal blog. To fill in your Google forms answer sheet, choose from the people (A-E) below the text
Why do People start writing blogs?
Read the personal stories of five bloggersAnn Handley
Like many of my schoool friends I used to spend hours every day writing a diary. But while they kept them hidden under their beds, I needed and audience, interaction and feedback. One day, my teacher encouraged me to join a pen friend organisation and I used to write pages of fascinating detail about my teacher, my friends, my dog... I even invented a few personalities, the details of which were far more interesting than my own life. So when one of my colleages explained to me what blogging was all about - the frequent postings, the feedback, the trackbacks - felt confident that I already knew all about it. I am now a marketing specialist and my blog is a business tool. But at the same time I am reliving the joy of communication and the thrill of the conversation.
Dave Armano
A year ago I was a professional minding my own business. When I started reading blogs, I would say to myself: "There's so much information out there - so many smart people." I decided to start my own blog, but I had no idea what I was doing,, I was basically a nobody and I was trying to get people to listen to to me. What was I thinking? But then I created a visual for my blog and before I knew it, I had all these other blogs linking to me - doing weird stuff like trackbacks. I had no idea what a trackback was, but I went from forty hits a day to close to a hundred overnight. It was amazing! That's when I stopped to think: if I wanted traffic, I needed to get some good content there and that's what really worked for me.
Carol Krishner
It's great to have my personal blog because I feel free and if I make mistakes I learn from the experience. I'm a lecturer, and it's refreshing to be able to step outside my academic interests and into a different world. But it's interesting that when you choose topics to write about you give others hints about yourself, and people do get to know you. So it's not the thing to do if you want to remain anonymous. One of the first lessons I learnt is that the blogosphere is a genuine community. After asking a question in a blog coment about what qualities are needed in a good blog, I son got a spot-on advice from a blogger I didn't even know, Then I had an invitation to a local face-to-face blogger meet-up, which was an amazing experience
Debbie Weil
I started my first blog exactly three years ago for a very practical reason. It was clear to mme that blogs were going to become a useful tool in my furture job as a journalist. I needed to know how to use this new tool, and I figured blogging myself was the quieckest way to get up to speed. I learnt quickly and since then I've helped others launch their own persona blogs. The simplicity of bloggging software enables me to write short entries without any problems or delays. Writing a 750-word article is a dauting task, but a quick blogentre takes less than a minute. And yet the effect is so significant - I get calls from companies saying they've read my blog and would I be available to give a presentation, for a large fee
Tristan Hussey
Writing has been a struggle for me for most of my academic life. In my first high school year I had aserious spelling problems all the time. At college, thanks to a spell checker and some practice, I did fine. In 2004, I was in an administrative job and feeling that I was onlny using a small portion of my skills. I had heard about this blogging thing and decided I should give it a go. I wrote one blog but deleted it after a couple of days. then I realised that if I wanted a better job, I'd need to get good at this. So I started reading blogs, writing blogs - it was a daily ritual of reading an writing. And guess what, my wirting was getting better, and, incredibly, I got noticed by employers. Today I work for a blog software company
A Ann Handley
B Dave Armano
C Carol Krishner
D Debbie Weil
E Tristan Hussey
