Saying otherwise would be akin to the fallacy of the professional athlete who claims he'd "play the game even if he didn't get paid, because it's all about the love". Riiight. And I assume these same athletes would also do two-a-days, subsist off little more than protein shakes and flaxseed, and wakeup to lift weights if they weren't getting paid $13M/year to do so.
I sure hope you get my point.
Just in case you didn't, most (yours truly included, but not all) bloggers are attention whores who spend our time doing what we do because we want the response of others. Whether or not folks agree is immaterial (although a co-sign certainly helps), what matters is that someone cares enough to say so.
My blog started out nearly 2 years ago with just two regular readers, me and AverageSisInLaw. Over time, the daily hits grew, and before you knew it, AverageNation™ was born. We have a stable of about 50-some readers who comment on a frequent basis, and most posts routinely reach the 25 comment mark, which I suppose is some bellweather for blog interest. Considering how slowing things started here, I consider myself blessed.
But this is merely a fraction of the daily visitors. A couple thousand people officially read this blog every day, or at least Google Analytics says so. There are about 300 more people who get the daily digest via Feedblitz. The number of Twitter followers (it's syndicated there) is steadily growing. Blogger.com followers (those folks in the tiny icons to the left) too. There are countless others who read via RSS feeds, which don't register in the daily hit count at all. So, when you look at the total number of eyes that hit AB.com daily, the number of comments is pretty paltry by comparison. Again, not that I'm complaining cause I love my regulars. Few blogs make any significant amount of money from ad revenue. Most of us blog for no financial gain, comments are the pay.[1]
So, today, on this eve of the 2nd anniversary of AB.com, I'm saying a huge thank you to the AverageNation™ regulars, and extending a warm invitation to all the lurkers. Come on in, join the conversation. You don't need a Blogger ID, and I intentionally allow comments without registration or approval because I want to keep the door wide open (and because I really don't have the time to moderate comments) for any and all.
Stop lurking and join the fine folks of AverageNation™ today.
The doors of the chuuuch are now open!
Question (for AverageLurkers™ only): Why don't you regularly comment on AB.com?
[1] Hypocrisy/irony alert!
