I have never heard of this before. I read a blogger’s post on how he had started his own blog from scratch as well as pruchasing an existing blog. He went on to talk about the advantages of both approaches. The advantage of buying a pre-existing blog counteracts the disadvantages of starting your own from scratch. A pre-existing blog already has an established base of readers and an index with the search engines, whereas a ground floor blog has none of this initially. Despite the quick start advantage to an established blog, I’m not sure I would go for it.
If I get an established blog, and I don’t know how to go about doing that, and I can’t specify which blog I want, then I have to settle for whatever I get. The next step is to go about and hope I get a blog that will be close to my personality and my selected theme. If not, then I basically have to go and start from scratch anyway re-establishing myself. For example, if I want to blog about video games and I buy a blog that discusses trade show assistance, I then have to hope that these readers also enjoy discussing video games. Otherwise, I’m back to square one. I’ll just start my own blog, thank you.

This happens to be one of those days when I have nothing to offer. No nuggets of insight, no interesting story to share. Just you, me and this page. What do you think? I love the banner; it was custome designed by a friend. It perfectly summarizes what this blog is about. Blogging ideas, tips, strategies and some unassociated nonsense for fun. I enjoy just looking at the design. I’m not narcissistic enough to revel in past posts, but I do like the color scheme and layout. I find it actually soothes me. That cool greenish-blue (or bluish-green) reminds me of the ocean in the tropics, full of coral and other sea creatures. I like my blog.

I read blog post today that claimed to give advice on how to survive the daily challenge of building a blog. This guy had 5 “lessons” he’s learned from starting his own blog and serves as a perfect example of the type of instant gratification society we have created. Here are his 5 lesson boiled down to 3 statements:

1. Find out what works
2. Work hard
3. Don’t quit

Wow, am I glad I took the time to read that.  I’m not going to link to his blog because I don’t want to embarass him, but this is pretty rudimentary stuff.  If you look through my blog archive, you’ll see posts promoting the same thing. If you are happen to read this blog, you know that creating anything is a process and that time is needed to bring that process to fruition. Class is dismissed.

As you can tell, I do sometimes find myself going off on tangents from time to time. We all need that. We can’t be so single-minded all the time that we forget to address other areas of passion in our lives. Case in point, I have a friend who lives near Newport Beach and he was crowing about this ring he had just gotten for his fiancee. I asked him where he got it, since we used to hang out a lot in that area, and he told me. I was having trouble remembering the place specifically when my friend told me, “just do a search for jewelers newport beach and you’ll see where they are.” As soon as I got off the phone with my friend, I took his advice. I did my search and there it was. As soon as I saw a map of the location and knew exactly where it was and what was nearby. Then I decided to take a look at what the store had to offer. It was amazing, they have a great collection of really uniqe merchandise. I may have to look at this place again for gift ideas for my wife when my 10 year anniversary rolls around.

Ok, this is going to seem like a lot of ideas going in a lot of different directions, so all I can say at this point is I’m trying to sort my ideas as they come. I was watching the latest episode of Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel last night. If you’re not familiar with the show, it follows the boats that fish in the Bering Sea for crab. The show has been going on for 6 years now and there about 4-5 boats that get filmed every season. Two of the captains from those boats had a major falling out at the beginning of the season. Last night, one of the captains tried to reconcile while the other captain wanted nothing to do with it. I don’t know the particulars of the argument and who’s right and who’s wrong, but when someone comes up to me and we’ve had a disagreement and they extend the olive branch, I have never turned them away. I felt horrible for this captain and was actually depressed for the rest of the night. You might say, “well, don’t watch the show.” And that’s all well and good for some.

But the thing of it is for me is that people are all we have. If you can’t get along with others, or you don’t make an effort, you are condeming yourself to a lonely, bitter life. I have a friend who wants nothing to do with people in general because humans are not as smart as he thinks he is. Ouch. I have another friend who asked on Facebook, “How many times must I extend the hand of peace before I become a doormat?” Every time. When you offer friendship and forgiveness, you are always the bigger person. And if someone chooses not to accept, or worse accept it then hurt you again, you have to continue making the offer. Because even if you don’t get through to the intended person, others will see what you do and reward you accordingly.

The next time you get a few minutes, try this and see if it works. If you’re on Twitter or Facebook, type in a search for your blog’s main focus and see if anyone has recent tweets or has started a group page. Communicate with that person or group, but don’t start advertising your blog right away. Introduce yourself to the community of followers or Facebook fans and express your interest in the topic and share some insights at first. Once you have a established a bit of a reputation, then put a brief plug in for your blog and see what happens.

By the title, I don’t mean to say that blogs exist solely to make money or that they shouldn’t be used that way, but I read earlier today that blog creation and the following that develops can be done differently. Some people who develop large followings have the gift of diverse experiences, funny comments and good insights. If you are lucky to have all three of these, you will probably build a very successful blog, but you won’t know it until it happens. Most people who have blogs that are like this are just as surprised as anyone when it becomes popular.

The simpler and easier thing to do is just find your niche and build your blog. I have a friend who repairs music instruments and has quite a reputation for quality work. If he were to start a blog, he would want to stick to topics concerning his area of expertise and attract other readers in that niche. He would probably struggle to find readers if he tried to broaden the topic of his blog.