Why do you read? That seems like an unintentionally philosophical question – like the time I, still half-asleep, asked someone “Why are you?” when I meant to ask “How are you?” (Its a very different experience.) I guess what I am really asking is: Why do you read this blog? There is an assumption there, sure, that you deliberately read this blog on a semi-regular basis. Perhaps you don’t. Perhaps you just googled something and arrived here randomly. Perhaps someone said, “Oh My God, you should see what this idiot just wrote.”

What other blogs do you read? Why do you read those? What do you find so appealing about them?

Chuck Westbrook is a man, a man with a plan. He wants to end, what he calls, ‘the Tragedy of Under-Appreciated Blogs.’ He maintains there are great blogs out there without readers and audiences without reading material. He wants to unite the two. And kudos to him.

It is easy to feel unappreciated. Hell, I’ve made a career out of it. (Regular readers will remember this previous blog entry, for example.) Chuck’s plan seems lovely, benevolent even. But will it work? At the time of writing there were 366 comments on his blog entry. (In fairness some comments are duplicates from the same author, but I do not have the time to ascertain how many.) As far as I can ascertain Chuck intends to feature a different blog every two weeks. I don’t know how often Chuck intends to do this. I don’t think even he knows that yet. I doubt it will be over 732 weeks.

A lot of people who feel ‘unappreciated’ are hoping they are holding on to a Golden Ticket. A 1/366th chance doesn’t strike me as good odds. And say you are selected as number 50, assuming the initiative is still going ahead (and readers are still reading) will people who are already disillusioned wait for 100 weeks for the promise of two weeks of readership?

And what kind of comments are you going to get? Lots of “Chuck sent me” comments? As a content creator, few things frustrate me as much as getting a “you have a nice smile” comment when I’ve just made a video talking about religion. Sure it is a nice compliment (to my face) but it doesn’t say much about my presentation. I have to accept in the moment that I have failed to capture the interest of the audience. I haven’t been able to get them to connect with the subject matter and themes. So I shall put to you yet another question: Is it better to have a large following or an engaged following?

I confess this is a distinction I’ve only made recently. I’ve been very envious of other content creators. I’ve come to embrace the realisation that the true merit is in the work itself and that the most meaningful communication is that which relates to the work. You have to be in it for the process of doing it.

If Chuck’s plan is successful it will be an exercise in serendipity; that somehow the chosen blog resonated with readers so much in the two week period that they become loyal readers. It is the same serendipity that connects any work with any audience. Perhaps I am naive, but I tend to believe in this force more than I do “Search Engine Optimization.” Perhaps a greater volume of visitors will lead to a speeding up in the process of joining author and reader, but I still maintain they will need to be compatible with each other. On some level there has to be some common ground of interests and values – that is where the magic happens, that is the very foundation of this idea of ‘community’ we speak of.