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Saturday, February 27, 2021

10 year anniversary of blogging

      

HoCo Connect

Random musings of one Columbian, a place to connect and to learn more about issues and events in Howard County. If you would like to have me blog on an issue, organization or an upcoming community service event email me at duanestclair@gmail.com 

     Ten years ago I had recently retired and decided to reconnect with what was happening in Howard County.  The previous 8 years since I had left my job with the Howard County Office on Aging had taken me out of the County for most of my contacts.  I wasn't sure how to reconnect until I read that there was going to be a meeting to explain how to use the new form of communicating called blogging.  Attending the meeting and speaking with some bloggers I realized that this might be the avenue I was looking for to reconnect.  I chose the name of HoCo Connect with this purpose in mind.  I was not sure where this activity would lead me but it certainly gave me a platform to connect with a wide variety of people.  The blogging community at that time was a growing group of local people who shared a wide variety of information.  My initial posts had a strong local flavor that has changed over the years to reflect more of my political postings as the national news of the past few years has become so toxic.  I realize that I may have offended some of the earlier followers of the blog with my switch to a more political direction. 

      Unfortunately, the popularity of blogging has been declining over the past few years.  What were regular opportunities to get together at local restaurants with other bloggers has stopped completely.  The number of readers of my blog has fallen off dramatically as the popular bloggers who linked with my blog have stopped blogging.  The Baltimore Sun used to have a section on their web edition that would list popular blogs.  They would list 5 blog posts of the day and one would be featured as the "blog of the day."  My blog was regularly listed and would occasionally be selected as the blog of the day.  That would mean as many as 2000 people would read your blog post.  Now getting 40 people to read your blog is a good post.

     So why am I still blogging after 10 years when so many others have stopped?  I think it is because it is hard to do anything for that long without getting tired of doing it.  I have thought of giving it up in previous years when my life was busy but the pandemic has made it easier to have time to blog on a regular basis.  What else can you do sitting at home so much?  In many ways, it reminds me of when I wrote the political column for my college newspaper called "Between Extremes" and being able to keep in practice with any writing skills I have.  Thank goodness for Grammarly!

    What does blogging hold for me going forward?  I hope to get back to less political blogging now that Trump is not a daily fixture but that remains to be seen.  The truth is I do the blog more for organizing my thoughts on subjects than anything else.  If the information I share is interesting to others so much the better.

P.S.

    My first blog 10 years ago.

P.S. 1

Over 1,011,000 views in the 10 years.

#hocoblogs

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