# 25 on Daypop. Jeez. Never thought that would happen. Always been more of a Blogdex man myself.

Pretty ironic that the specific blog where I blog about bloggers blogging about blogging gets blogged by bloggers blogging about blogging and is what gets me into blogdex and daypop.

It seems my blogging about blogging has gotten some bloggerific attention. Now David Weinberger chimes in with:

"So, Dave blogs about Doc blogging about Jacob Shwirtz blogging about bloggers blogging about blogging, and now I reference Dave, enabling me to achieve a Level 5 Meta-Blog, making me the most meta-blogging blogger on the planet! Woohoo!"

Very funny David!

Others have also chimed in on the subject. Mar Orlygsson has some good links for you. One Pot Meal makes some astute points. PageCount continues the meta-metablogging. And RedApple reminds us all of the important point that there is a difference between online personal diary, meme journal, personal site, and other incarnations.

That last point is right on because it all comes down to what a blogger's goal is. This sets expectations and attracts the appropriate readership. In my first entry I said that I don't intend to link to "cool links of the moment." People know not to come here looking for the latest meme, or speculation about what will become a meme. Likewise, I don't discuss too much of what happens in my personal life. I don't find it interesting so I don't think other will either. Nothing wrong with that. I prefer to keep a site where I can commentate on the marketing industry, philosophical thoughts on life, existence, knowledge and communication and other topics I happen to find interesting. I don't promise to update every day, I never promise to know what's cool and I never tell my readers what I had for dinner. Everyone blogs with a different angle and for a different reason. The Internet is awesome and I am so happy to be a part of the amazing revolution that is just beginning!

Golly gee. I'm number 50 on Blogdex. After ranting about the mysterious art of blog popularity, and what it takes to get that sort of recognition, I never thought I'd make it past the 30,000 range. I have to run out now to the class I'm teaching on entrepreneurship (at my old high school here in Brooklyn) but I plan on giving this matter serious thought a bit later. It seems the blog is getting a lot of traffic because of my quasi-philosophical rant on blogging about blogging. Maybe a few more links to the blogging rant and I'll hit the top 25? Guess my planned entry on "Creativity Naivity" will have to wait.

Tears running down my face as I excitedly proclaim that Fuzzy Blogic is "Blog of the Day" on Feeling Listless. Yay!

Segway test-drive and commentary:

Sadly, as of 2/26/02, I have been asked to remove this content. Sorry. Hopefully one day I will be able to put it back online.

But I don't want your visit here to be wasted.

Read the rest of my fantastic writings by going to the home page of my personal weblog, Jacob Shwirtz - The Journal.

Or, check out what I do for a living - I run the super-cool, intellectual, hip, witty and snazzy community of creative and thoughtful people at GAZM.org!

It takes a blogging philosopher to blog this blog, but I'll do my blog-darn-darndest.

It seems that more and more blogs spend more and more time talking about blogs. In addition to keeping a log, or journal, or personal site on the web, many people devote a decent amount of time and space to blogging about blogging - journaling thoughts on journaling.

A regular blog reader will often come across the following thought-lines:
Blogging is great because it allows you to...
Blogging is awesome because people can finally...
Blogging is revolutionary because once and for all...
Traditional journalists are scared of blogging because...
I can use my blog to link to...

But instead of DOING and going through with the true other half of those sentences, they end up being completed with:
...talk about blogging (burning bird, keep trying)
...talk about blogging (chris pirillo, whiskey river)
...we can talk about the blogging revolution (david weinberger, just like that)
...bloggers talk about blogging (doc searls, dave winer)
...discussions on the nature of blogging (dvorak, wired)

When a brave blogger uses their blog as an online journal they are often criticized for blogging about things no one cares about.

Maybe the biggest misconception and mistake is to think of blogs as online journals. We want to read people's opinions, we don't necessarily want to know too much about their lives. The most popular blogs seem to be focused on journalistic-style commentary on memes and other topics of interest, only sprinkling in a few personal anecdotes. It's not enough just to link to popular links of the moment. It is certainly not enough to just talk about yourself. Readers (who are oftentimes other bloggers) want to read personal commentary on topics. Popular blogs then become the products of wanna-be journalists, want-fewer-restrictions journalists and wanna-be-as-famous-as-famous-bloggers bloggers.

By the way, I realize the irony in using my blog to blog about blogging while seemingly criticizing blogs that talk about blogging.

Misconception tracker: It is not my intention to criticize the above practices. I have certainly also blogged about the nature of blogs on more than one occasion. I also regularly read all of the above blogs that I blogged and enjoy their blogging about the nature of blogging. My intention is merely to point out that a lot of recent blogging has been focused on blogs themselves. Blogs are amazing because of their relative newness to most people. The trend is still evolving. More and more people are empowering themselves through blogging. We're still figuring out what it is all about. That's why we bloggers blog about blogging. It's awesome and I am proud to offer my 2 cents on the topic.

Final thought: I suppose maybe this is connected somehow to the huge popularity of personality tests. New ones pop up every day and regularly rank highly on blogdex. New attempts at self discovery and understanding include: Which Sesame Street Character Are You, Which My So-Called Life Character Are You and Which Labyrinth Character are you most like? If you're into it, read my previous blog entry about personality tests here.