I agree that time will weed out most would-be bloggers. I can't tell you how many blogs - from writers and Regular People Who Blog - I've removed from my "favorites" list because they were no longer being updated regularly, or the blogger had nothing new to say, etc. Those blogs will eventually die out.

As a writer who has a Regular People Who Blog type of blog, I wonder if I should be more provocative sometimes in order for my blog to survive. I do try to keep the "cute things my kids did today" and navel-gazing posts to a minimum, but my posts aren't always as thought-provoking as I would like. Perhaps I'll see if I can start a "kerfuffle." Yes indeedy ... I have a topic in mind already.

Andrea--

A hint: The best way to start a kerfuffle is to criticize other bloggers.

(This is also the second best way to start a kerfuffle.)

[Not that I'm trying to start a kerfuffle.]

Keep me posted on your kerfuffling,

David

David, David, David. Sweetheart, give it up. You are too nice and can't hope to compete with kerfuffle rival Alan Jenkins who recently wrote about the U.S., 'Terrorism is, at most, an irritant.'

Now that's world class kerfuffling!

Not that world class. I wouldn't fall for it.

I appreciated Allan's comment and didn't see in it a kerfuffle-starting attempt. (Now, had he said, "Bloggers are, at most, an irritant"--look out!)

But he was making a larger point that Americans receive constant worrisome government alerts about terrorist acts that might or might not come and meanwhile we are becoming so physically out of shape that we're going to drown in our own cholesterol. Allan's an American expat living in Copenhagen and I like his perspective on America, which he understands in his bones but has some distance from.

Ironically enough, Allan is the blogger I called a "nobody." The point I was clumsily making at the time was that I read everything this "nobody" writes because he's surprising and colorful and unpredictable and DEFINITELY not afraid of the odd kerfuffle.

Excuse me? Dearest, are you actually defending AJ, my favorite IABC shock-blogger? Sorry, but anybody who attacks my precious, defenseless bag of Fritos is no friend of mine. Take away the MacDonalds and TV dinners (please), but don't touch my Fritos!

How dare you take away my McDonald's--and for what?--Fritos??!?!?!?!??!? Wow, you're cruising for a kerfuffle, Missy.

Popcorn rules! Real popcorn, not the microwave bag. With butter and salt. Mmmmmmm butterrrrrrr

But about the survivability of blogs, I would argue Andrea S-R (and this isn't a criticism of her blog, because I have never read it, but rather her comment) that to blog something provocative just to start a kerfuffle just to help ensure the survival of the blog, seems a bit in the mold of "blogging to blog". And doesn't this all smack of your issue in the recent post "The blogging blogger blogged"?

Rather instead, shouldn't you be blogging on topics that are important to you because they are important to you and you think your audience has an interest. And if the audience isn't there, either pick a new topic or drop blogging.

michael clendenin

Michael - I agree with your points, and that's actually what I do in my blog. I write about what's important or interesting to me and (hopefully) my audience, small as it is.

I have no intention of starting a kerfuffle regularly, nor do I think I need to do so in order for my blog to survive. When I said I was going to see if I could start a kerfuffle, I was just being ornery, though I do plan to try just this one time. But the topic I have in mind - which I have not posted about - is something I've been planning to write about anyway and, in fact, I may not even write about it differently than I would have otherwise.

So, I guess my point is that I disagree with David's original point. I don't think one needs to be involved in regular kerfuffles for a blog to survive. Dialogue, and even disagreements? Sure! But kerfuffles? Not so much.

I don't think you need to start a kerfuffle to keep your blog alive, nor am I recommending purposely doing so.

But if you're saying anything worth saying you'll likely get yourself into a kerfuffle eventually over something; and your ability to handle it will have bear on your ability to be a long-term blogger relevant in whatever world you're blogging in.

I think a good blog is one that starts a discussion, not necessarily a kerfuffle (had to check the spelling on that as I typed it). The blogs that bore me to tears are the one that spout ideas without any invitation for interaction. Those are the ones I end up deleting after a few tries from my FAVORITES.

David, perhaps you just like to pick fights? Are you a blogging bully?

I'm a writer who blogs about things that interest me. I'm also one of the bloggers who may fall by the blogging wayside because I've fallen out of love with blogging. It's a "conversation," yeah--but not really, because it's sort of a given that you need to post regularly, and sometimes I wish the conversations could just go on longer; few people comment on the next-to-the-top post. And, frankly, I'm in a mood these days where I'm sick and tired of people's opinions, especially mine (she opined, whining).

I enjoy the hell out of a very few blogs, including this one, and enjoy throwing my two cents' worth in from time to time, but part of me wishes I could be curing cancer or creating world peace instead of kvetching online to find my community.

There, I've said it and it'll be floating in the blogosphere till Kingdom Come.

Excellent post, well timed.

Regarding blog kerfuffles, there is a certain element of the blogosphere that lends itself to kerfuffling, if you will. That is that from a technical standpoint, the playing field is more or less level between all bloggers. And that lends itself to David vs. Goliath-style behavior where smaller niche bloggers challenge more established players--both to solidify their own niche and to stimulate interest from the bigger player's readership.

I do this from time to time--but I feel my niche, challenging the conventional wisdom, ideology and behavioral culture of the organizational comms industry--makes such challenges appropriate.

And, I think, when the smoke clears, the positions, arguments and rationales that emerge are both stronger and better known from the engagement.

Yours in kerfuffledom,

Mike Klein

I found it interesting to read in Ragan's Grapevine today that all sorts of heavy-duty bloggers are getting out of the biz, or talking about doing so, for a variety of reasons. I think an objective discussion along those lines will be healthy for blogging, communication, and Life As We Know It.

Jane, I appreciate your candid comment, and I do know how you feel. Kurt Vonnegut wrote that the beauty in the world was in the stone and flesh and he added that "online communities build nothing." Though I'm not sure he was right, I'm not sure he was wrong.

We all get tired of the sound of our own voice—especially those of us who talk so damned much—and the voices of others. When I have felt this way it has usually meant that I have to DO SOMETHING: Something scary to the point of seeming crazy—to get more experience, to change my own context to the point where I find myself (and others) interesting again.

Or, as Mike points out, sometimes we can just SAY something provocative enough to make a stir and test our ideas and our feelings against the unpredictable reactions of others. That, to my mind, is what a good kerfuffle is for.

What is this "blogosphere"?

There is the handful of corporate and news blogs.

There is the bigger handful of blogs that become famous because they repeat or anticipate the news. (I never read these.)

There are some blogs where people share their work, such as writing and art.

There are the millions of blogs where people track the minutiae of their lives. "I ate a hamburger today! I blew my diet! Ugh!" "Jimmy is being moody. He doesn't love me. I knew it." "Today we went to the farmers market and once again didn't buy any farmers." Or spout their opinions, informed and not-so-informed.

So what is this "blogosphere" I am thoroughly, thoroughly sick of hearing about?

Rant appreciated, Diane. But actually, this is a social utility of the occasional kerfuffle: It tends to organize all those random blogs into a temporarily recognizable blogosphere. Don't you think?

It's too disparate to be recognizable, at least to me. "Blogosphere" is one of those self-important terms I have come to loathe.