Blogging...Its not just for business anymore

Okay, I'll admit it.  I showed up a little more than fashionably late to the blogging scene.

There were several reasons for my tardiness.  But I think the biggest was a total lack of understanding. I had no idea what a weblog was, let alone how to create one of my own. And, I certainly didn't understand the many different ways blogs could be used and what powerful communication tools they could be.

I first heard about blogging back in 2004 from a friend in the public relations business. She touted it as a great way to generate free publicity on the internet. What an amazing concept! Instead of just sending out press releases to the media and hoping they get picked up, you could now push your message out directly to the public, exactly as you want them to see it.  Genius! Pure Genius!

Shortly after that, I started to see blogs cropping up everywhere.  Maybe I was just noticing them more as I became more aware, but blogging was definitely on the rise.  

Blogs quickly became a huge addition to the media with many mainstream journalists writing their own blogs about current events. Scientists and researchers started using them to chronicle research results and share them with colleagues. And, millions of business people, just like all of us here in active rain, began using weblogs to help generate business and drive traffic to their websites.  

But blogging is not just for business anymore!

  I'm amazed at how many personal blogs I see out there now.  Its becoming common place for people to share their lives over the internet. People everywhere are keeping personal diaries online to share thoughts, opinions and ramblings about anything under the sun.  It's quickly replacing letter writing, email and even scrapbooking, as a way of journaling life events, complete with photos and videos, to share with family and friends. You can find blog posts on just about everything from baby's first steps to that horrible date last night. 

So many people have joined the blogosphere that as of today, the blog search engine Technorati is currently tracking 93.7 million blogs, with more than 175,000 new blogs being added every day.  According to Technorati, bloggers keep their blogs up to date with over 18 posts per second for a total of more than 1.6 posts per day.

So how do you blog? Is it just for business, do you have a personal blog as well, or do you combine the two?