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I am seeing an increasing trend where many online bloggers are helping and linking mostly to bloggers from their own ethnic background only. This is probably a trait carried on from the offline world, where one prefers and gives better treatment to people depending on their ethnic background. By ethnic background, I am referring solely to the ethnic background of a person, and no other connection.

The blogs in question could be about any topic, but a person, or you, may prefer linking or reading them simply because the blogger in question is of the same ethnicity as yourself, and not because of the topic in question. In the process of doing so, a person is deliberately ignoring people from other ethnicities, simply because they are from a different ethnic background.

Is your favorite blogger giving preferential treatment based on ethnic backgrounds?

Check out majority of the top blogs on the internet today, including all the ones you visit each and every single day. Check out this very site too, and check out your sites too if you have one. If many of the top blogs do not usually link to each other based on the amount of income one makes, then many of those blogs prefer linking to each other based on their ethnic background affiliations. Do you also notice such a trend?

Some people can mix ethnicity to country affiliations too. Americans preferring American bloggers, Australians preferring Australian bloggers, Brazilians preferring Brazilian bloggers, Canadians preferring Canadian bloggers, Chinese preferring Chinese bloggers, French preferring French bloggers, Indians preferring Indian bloggers, Japanese preferring Japanese bloggers, Mexicans preferring Mexican bloggers, Vietnamese preferring Vietnamese bloggers, and so on. Instead of using the internet to be more equal and to do away with racial and ethnic differences, we are using the internet to increase the awareness of such socially constructed differences even more.

A brief view of a brief summary my view on ethnic backgrounds and affiliations

The topic of how much I dislike ethnic affiliations requires a book of its own. I personally oppose any idea of preferential treatment based on ethnic identities. I consider everyone, including myself, to be equal unless and until someone brings me back to my senses by asking me about my ethnic background and by making me realize how different or same of a human being I may be in the eyes of others. For me, ethnic identification is just a stereotype, since every human being is unique and has her or his own abilities that may be similar to the abilities of other people.

I dislike talking about my ethnic background, since in my view talking about such a thing does nothing but give others better ways to stereotype. I am me; judge me, if you must, based on how I act and based on how I think and based on what I feel, and not based on how some specific group out there may act or think or feel. “You are from Japan? No wonder you like sushi. You are of African decent? No wonder you like rap music. You are American? No wonder you support any and all wars. You are European or Middle Eastern? No wonder you oppose any and all wars. You from the same ethnic background as me? We are good friends already! You have the same ethnicity as me? I will treat you better, and you should treat me better too.” All pure rubbish views, in my view, because they are derived solely from stereotypes based on ethnic generalities and assumptions. I do not care what your ethnicity is. All I care is how you have and will act around me and others, and towards me, others and yourself, and why. Thats is it. Nothing else matters to me when it comes to me respecting you. Absolutely nothing.

Do you prefer linking to, or reading things by bloggers who are of the same ethnic background as yourself?

What do you think? Do you support the idea of linking to or reading blogs written by bloggers from the same ethnic background?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you.

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1. Directions

   Driving around with furniture and going to at least 4 cities everyday, in the middle of a move, can prove to cause headaches sometimes. That is why using the cell phone, I saved a lot of time finding out directions or shortcuts to different places. The cell phone allows me to either access Google Maps, or call a 1-800 number to find out directions. For reasons I will explain in the near future, I was forced to put some of the furniture on top of my car at the last minute in order to move it to the new house. While driving, the furniture fell down once. I decided to find some local roads instead of taking the freeway. Google Maps showed me a local route to my destination. It took longer, but the furniture did not fall again from the top of my car.

2. Finding out specific answers to specific questions

   Using the cell phone, I could call someone and find out some information, or I could even text some people. I had a very important presentation a few days ago, and I had forgotten some key information. I was driving, so checking the internet via my cell phone was not possible as I did not have enough time. What was the solution? I decided to either quickly e-mail someone or text someone. Some people I knew in other countries were sleeping like babies, so I decided to ask Valerie if she could help me . She helped me, by texting me back with all the information I needed. In this case, the cell phone is sometimes only good when you know someone reliable who can help you find some very important information. Thanks Valerie!

3. Contacting people

   This can be considered the most basic purpose of a cell phone. While doing a lot of important things, none of which can easily be given priority over something else, contacting people for various things by placing a simple phone call can help tremendously. I called a few people to confirm appointments, and I called a few people to let them know I would be a few minutes late. I also talked to different people about different important things, in other countries also, about topics ranging from business tasks to personal things.

4. Checking e-mail

   E-mail is unfortunately a big part of my life. The reason I say “unfortunately” is because I do not like relying on any piece of technology, unless it helps and cannot backfire. I get many e-mails everyday, and thus checking those e-mails via my cell phone while on the go is very important to me. I was selling some furniture, and I got an e-mail from a buyer willing to pay the price I wanted. I contacted them through my cell phone e-mail, and I sold the furniture.

5. View missed calls

   If your cell phone allows you to view missed calls, this can be one of the most important features available. I get a lot of phone calls regularly, from friends, strangers, business contacts who are either friends or just business contacts, and even new random people who call for life-threatening help for various reasons [one of my supposed-specialties]. While driving around and moving stuff, I missed a lot of calls, and I was able to call back some people. Of course, I was not able to call back any blocked calls or calls from restricted numbers.

The 5 examples above illustrate how my cell phone helped me tremendously during the last few days. By helping me find directions to finding information to interacting with others to checking e-mails to finding out who tried to contact me, my cell phone helped me save a lot of time and helped me do a lot of things faster.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about this. Thank you.

Below is the original post I had written, on July 31st, 12:02 am PST.

Title: No post today, tuesday - Moving houses - July 31st, 2007

Hello. It is that time of the year again, where I have to do it again. No, I don’t mean getting stabbed again. I am moving houses and changing cities. I will most probably not be able to access a computer with an internet connection today [Tuesday], so I apologize in advance. I will update this very post on Wednesday, hopefully, with some more useful information, like a good article. Once the new article goes live, this very message will either be buried or will get deleted.

I will reply to all comments and e-mails by this Thursday evening. If you wish to get a hold of me, simply contact me by e-mailing or im’ing me on my cell phone through e-mail or AOL AIM instant messaging.

Thank you for supporting me so far. I really appreciate it.

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Online dating services like Match, eHarmony, LavaLife, True, FriendFinder and Yahoo Personals allow you to meet new people to have relationships with. Some services like Yahoo Personals are free, while services like True cost money. Some services can have you up and searching for a supposed soulmate within 5 minutes by answering less than 10 questions. Other services, like eHarmony, make you answer around 436 questions before you can be shown any results.

Some people get good results using such services, finding the right person to date or become engaged to. Some other people do not get any results with such services, since the concept of relationships is really hard in the offline world, and the online nature of approaching dating makes it only more complicated for many people. For many people, simply looking at a picture does not match the level of observation one can make by actually observing a person in the offline world.

Do you like the idea of using online dating services?

Do you think it is a good idea to use online dating services to meet new people? Or do you prefer meeting new people through mediums other than those offered by online dating services?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you for reading.

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Good things:

Yesterday, I added an old friend of mine on MySpace to my MySpace account. We have not talked for almost 7 years for reasons I cannot remember, so I am not sure if she will add me as her friend, or if she will freak out and say “Who the heck is Bes? Gonna block this psycho!@!@!@!@!” That is a benefit of using MySpace. Not the blocking part, but the finding old friends part.

Also, you can keep in touch with friends through different things including MySpace Instant Messaging. You can also become part of the school and university groups, rate your professors too.

Bad things:

One of the flaws of using MySpace is relying on a service that is not reliable and something which does not have that many features. Spam and scamming MySpace messages haunt MySpace users. Many porn and dating services are creating fake profiles to lure unsuspecting and maybe desperate people in. Also, many psychos and stalkers are on MySpace, probably tracking different users for whatever reasons.

On top of that, MySpace is becoming more and more of an advertising network where more focus is being put on bringing ads to the users instead of adding features or building MySpace from scratch on many levels to make it more user friendly. I think Facebook learned a lot from MySpace, which is good for Facebook, and uncertain for MySpace.

What do you think of MySpace? Do you like, or would you like to use MySpace?

Some people do not use MySpace to find new people, but to simply keep in touch with people who already have MySpace, and to keep in touch with people who only want to keep in touch through MySpace. So, do you like using MySpace? Do you have, or plan to use MySpace?

Thank you for reading.

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1. You use the online language in the offline world.

   On paper, you preferring writing “U” instead of “You.” You say “LOL” in the offline world when you want to laugh. The post office cashier says “Have a nice day” and you say 4 letters “TTYL“, sending the cashier into a world of confusion.

2. You always want to know if your offline contacts have blogs or MySpace or Facebook accounts.

   You make a frustrated face if people do not have any online presence and instead have cell phone numbers to share with you. When you get a speeding ticket, you start wondering if you can pay it online and if the cops have blogs while the cop is writing you a ticket. You wonder if that cop has a MySpace account that you can block.

3. You always think of checking e-mails before you think of getting out of bed in the morning.

   You think of brushing and washing face at least an hour after you wake up, because that is the amount of time you usually spend skimming through many of the e-mails you get. While brushing, you think of how to respond to some e-mails, and how to check more e-mails. Your entire day may revolve around 24 e-mail accounts, and not 24 hourly blocks.

4. You revolve offline activites around online activities.

   You plan going to the movies depending on how long it will take you to watch random videos on YouTube. You plan eating times depending on when no one is online on instant messengers from MSN, Yahoo, Google, AOL, Skype or MySpace; you pause your eating and going out if even a single contact is online to talk to you. You may not talk to them, but you will also not leave them alone in the online world. Food can wait.

5. You cannot remember the last time you stayed offline for more than three hours, except for when you slept for 3 hours and 10 minutes.

   From the moment you wake up, you prefer looking at a monitor or any screen that allows you to access the online world. Even while getting a ride, or getting on the subway, you keep focusing on your laptop or your cell phone to keep in touch with the online world of games and messaging. One of the reasons you hate driving is because you cannot easily access your e-mail through your cell phone while driving; you can, but you do not want to die either. You do not fear death because it is death; you fear it because you do not know if you will be able to check e-mails after you die.

This list told you about 5 random signs that show you spend too much time online. From sticking to online language to wanting all offline people to have an online social networking account, to checking e-mails all the time to revolving your life around the internet, and not remembering the last time you stayed offline for a while, you can figure out whether or not you yourself spend too much time online.

Can you come up with some other points? I am going to end this article now, as I have to do some things online, then eat, and then head out to see either Sunshine or The Simpsons.

Thank you for reading.

[Update: 7 minutes after this article was published: Sunshine started 12 minutes ago. I must have forgotten the timing, or they changed it. Oh well: The Simpsons, or no movie tonight. ]

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For some people, a blog about relationships may do better if the author’s relationship status is shared with the readers. Some people may want to be open through their online presence, so listing their relationship details may appear to be necessary on their blogs or comments. Similarly, some people may want to list your relationship status on places like MySpace or Facebook because they may simply want to be open, or they may want to meet other people to have some kind of a relationship with, like solely friendship or sometimes dating too.

Do you like revealing your relationship status online?

Do you like telling others online whether you are single, married, divorced, engaged or something else through your blog, comments or on social networking profiles?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you.

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1. The offline contacts you talk about may find out your site, causing relationship issues.
2. You may alienate online people because of the way you treat offline people through your offline stories.
3. Offline businesses may not give you their business, in the form of a contract or employment, if they see you talking about offline businesses.
4. Online, things can be taken out of context, and thus appear to be completely different what they really are in the offline world.
5. Your online privacy will be reduced. More online people will know about your personal life, creating more ways for stalkers and similar people to intrude on your life if they want to.

Do you blog about or like reading blogs about personal life stories from the offline world?

What is your opinion on this? Do you currently talk about offline people and events in your online blog? Do you like reading people’s offline stories on online websites? Do you think it is a good thing to express the personal things from the offline world online, or do you prefer keeping things in their own offline/online realm?

Thank you for reading.

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There could be several reasons you would want to interact with people outside of a blog. Following is a random list of 6 such reasons:

1. Make online friends
2. Make online contacts to help yourself or others with businesses or blogs
3. Make online contacts to learn about something
4. Make online contacts to help them convert to offline friends and contacts - my favorite
5. Make online friends to fulfill hobbies, like exchanging gifts
6. To promote a weird kind of drama, the one to get yourself headaches and stalkers - this is a personal classic of mine that is revisited more than once every year or so for almost 6 years. I’m hoping to avoid it beginning this year.

6 random ways to interact with people outside of blog comments area

There can also be several ways to interact with people outside of a blog commenting area, like the following 6 ways:

1. E-mails
2. Instant messages
3. Text messages
4. Online voice conferences
5. Online webcam conferences
6. Snail mail - more and more people are giving this up. I think I would never want to give this up

An example of interacting via Snail Mail with online people: Sidney from Bubbles SOC

A good example of this is Sidney from BubblesSoc; Sidney has a very nice habit of sending me amazing gifts in the mail from time to time, and I still have to send her a lot of things that I have not had the time to pack and mail, because of packing and mailing a lot of other stuff. She is very good at it; I want to be as good too. She knows how to build relationships and make good friends that way. Just because of this, I consider Sidney a very nice and considerate person and friend. Maybe I like her gifts a lot?

For another example of this, you can read how Ronald became friends with a few online people by interacting with them for different reasons and through different levels. Ronald is a good friend of mine because of many reasons, including what he wrote in his post.

Do you build relations with others outside of a blog?

If I had not interacted with some people, and vice versa, outside of the blog comments on either my site or other sites, I would not know many of the wonderful and interesting friend that I know now. Similarly, had I refrained from interacting with certain people outside of the comments area, I would have saved myself from a lot of headache, a stabbing, and a few stalkers. Cute stalkers who hate knives and any harmful, physical objects are always welcome, though, I think.

So, do you like building relations with bloggers and commentors outside of a blog? Could the reasons you build such relations affect the level of relationship you can end up with?

Thank you for reading.

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1. Importance is based on earnings

   Many people think that the richer a blogger is, the more important that blogger is supposed to be. The next time you run into a blogger and want to act discriminatory, or simply want to stereotype them, simply find out how much money they make, and worship them accordingly.

   This stereotype is the reason why you see so many immature and manipulative bloggers running around claiming authority, when all they have is an authority on the amount of money they make. Have money? Will worship.

2. Intelligence of others is based on their topics of interest

   Because of this stereotype, most personal bloggers and personal blogs are not taken seriously by many in the blogosphere. Sure, talking about overcooking the tuna may be interesting to someone, but you think such bloggers need sympathy and mental help. For you, the only normal bloggers may be the ones who talk about ways to make money, or they talk about topics which make them money, enabling you to use the first point above into your judgment too.

   This stereotype is one of the reasons personal bloggers are considered to be less knowledgeable, and also less important, than many other kinds of bloggers. This very stereotype may also blind you from the fact that personal bloggers shaped the origins and the beginning of the blogging trend. Instead of feeling lucky that you know bloggers and personal bloggers who have defined history for all future bloggers for generations to come, you simply think “A blog about daily life? This blogger has no life!“

3. Disagreements mean there are enemies

   This is one of the classics. If you see a blogger talking about something which disagrees with what you believe either directly or indirectly, you use the offline stereotype regarding disagreements and immediately start considering that blogger to be your life-long enemy. A blogger says Honda is the best but you think Ford is superior? You pray for that blogger’s doom. They eat 3 times a day but you prefer eating 5 times a day? You start attacking them directly and personally for not living their life the way you want them to live their life.

   Everyone can have their own understanding of the world, but this offline stereotype, which even prompts many people to find mirror copies of themselves to date, results in people feeling that the existence of any difference of opinion means we have to learn the art of fist fighting and we have to convert everyone else, by force, to our way of thinking.

4. Intelligence is measured by appearance

   For many people, a poorly designed blog means the blogger in question is stupid. This has something to do with our offline lives; if you see two business people, wearing the same suit and both appearing professional arrive in two different vehicles, one being a brand new car, and the other being a rusty old truck from 1950 with loud, annoying music on, which person would you be more inclined to do business with? Many people, if not most, will be inclined to choose the guy in the new car. Why? Because we care about appearances. You may think bloggers are stupid unless the nice design of a blog makes you want to smell your monitor to see if you can smell the freshness.

   While caring for appearances is important, we forget the fact that sometimes some people cannot fix certain things, or do not know how to. However, this offline stereotype of judging others based on their appearance to think that anyone who does not have a good looking blog is not a good blogger, cannot think logically, cannot writer, cannot communicate, and so on. Is that not sort of similar to what we do in the offline world, where if we are right about someone being careless enough to not take care of their appearance when they possibly can, we start questioning unrelated things about their character also, like loyalty, intelligence, and importance?

5. Ethnicity, gender, political and religious affiliations define a person for you, and not what the person actually does in life

   This can be the classic example for many people. The same way many people categorize and judge others in the offline world based on ethnic background, gender, political and religious affiliations, I am noticing many people judge bloggers based on their similar characteristics. You hate people from certain ethnicities and you run into a blogger from that ethnicity? No problem; you simply stereotype and tell the blogger “How dare you go online and start blogging? People of your type should be banned from blogging.”

   Sure, a blogger may themselves try to promote their ethnicity, gender, political or religious affiliation onto the reader, but you do not need to follow their example. It is better to judge people based on how they relate and value certain things, like religion, than to associate them with a certain religion and treat them the same way you supposedly want to treat everyone from that specific trait or religion.

There you have it. Those are the 5 stereotypical things that I think many people have successfully brought from their offline lives onto the online world. If you want to continue stereotyping in the online world, the above list can serve as a cheat sheet for you to refer to whenever you want to think of solid, proven methods to stereotype bloggers.

What is your opinion about this? Can you think of some other points that allow many of us to categorize and stereotype against bloggers?

Thank you for reading.

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What many people in the online world do not realize is that sharing information has nothing to do with whether you are online or offline; if you share anyone’s personal information with anyone, through any method and in any form, you may be breaking a trust.

I think that in order to build relationships, make friends or even have good contacts, one should prioritize the idea of never revealing anyone’s personal information under any circumstance unless one has specific permission to do so. Otherwise, people who share their personal lives with others will be forced to blame themselves for sharing their thoughts with others.

Sharing people’s personal and private information, that they entrusted you with, in your blog posts should be avoided

Imagine you write a blog post using someone’s personal life situation as even a small indirect example, and then some random commentor dissects that information or the topic in question. Because of that, you have forced someone, who shared that personal information with you, to feel defensive and to feel bad for having their personal lives out in the open for random people to discuss and debate. That is not an act of being considerate to others. That is an act of using others to write blog posts.

Why would you assume that someone would not mind you sharing their personal information?

Personal information is personal information, Assuming things like “I thought you wouldn’t mind…” only makes me think of a few questions: Why would you think that someone would not mind you sharing their personal information? What specific thing prompted you to think that someone would be comfortable with you talking about their personal life with someone else, on a blog or a place like Xanga? What is your reasoning and logic behind such an assumption?

If you ask personal questions, be prepared to keep to yourself any personal answers you receive

Many people consider things like business and blogging ideas to be part of their personal lives too, so it is important to realize when to share any information about other people, and when to simply keep quiet. If you do discuss the information with someone, make sure no one finds out about it. Otherwise, the act of sharing information will result in someone running into trust issues, because of their private information being put into the public world by an inconsiderate person. It is not nice to have someone else suffer because of your actions, is it?

What do you think? If you would like to read more on a related note, Jess has an excellent post about this, titled “How foolish is it to trust?“, which can tell you more about some of the thoughts that can come to mind regarding the topic of trusting others.

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If you are a blogger, you may have a habit of responding only to certain comments or commentors, or you may try to respond to every comment. You may also not respond to any comment at all. If you are a blogger, you should realize that there is a difference between responding to comments and simply acknowledging comments. Thus, simply acknowledging comments as an obligation on a regular basis does not mean you know how to, and that you actually are willing to, communicate and interact with your readers.

Responding to comments as a reader

If you are a reader and a commentor on a blog, you may or may not like responding to each and every comment addressed to you, or you may or may not like responding to comments that revolve around your comment. You may even have the habit of tackling and addressing each comment on other people’s blog, based on certain criteria such as the type of a blog in question, the type of topic covered, etc.

One thing we should keep in mind is that every blogger can also be a commentor, and every commentor can also be a blogger through the comments, so both bloggers and commentors can also fall into both categories at the same time.

I try my best to respond to each and every comment

I try to respond to everyone on this site, and I try my best to keep up to date with my comments and any due comments on other sites. Sometimes it takes a while, even a few weeks or months, though I try my best to get to everything. For me, late follow-ups are better than no follow-ups. Communicating with others is one of my main priorities.

I just went through all of my comments and e-mails, and unless I have misplaced e-mails or cannot easily find things because of numerous computer backups, I am happy to say that I have responded, via comments, instant messages, e-mails and other channels of communication, to each and every comment and commentor on all of my blogs for the last 7-8 years or so, with the exception of RA Project, Flickrness and Eyeography so far; I should hopefully be able to get to them soon. Responding to comments in my view means communicating with the commentor, and I do that even on the phone [voice or text messages].

Is responding to all comments one of your priorities?

Keeping the above in mind, do you like responding to all blog comments?

Please let me know what your opinion is about this topic, and also whether or not you think responding to all comments is necessary. Thank you.

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1. Not talking about a job means you have no job

   Many people assume that if someone does not talk much about their offline job, they do not have a job, or they do not have a good job. These people probably cannot understand the fact, easily, that sometimes people simply do not want to talk about something in their personal life as it may be boring, or it may be personal and they may not want to share it with people who are not genuinely interested in knowing.

   I personally get to hear this every other day, since I do not talk about my offline work activities, or anything similar, on my site here or with others that much. Instead of asking, people assume things about my job. I get over 50 calls every day alone related to “work” that I do not get paid for, and I have to meet around 10 people every 2 days or so, directly, in private meetings, to do things related to work, round the clock; sometimes I have to meet people at 3 AM. That is why I am always finding it funny when some people do not ask me about my activities, but simply assume that I do not do anything other than to blog on this site and eat chocolate.

2. Never talking about your offline life means you have no offline life

   Some people assume that if you do not push your offline personal life into the online world, you do not have an offline life. That is why if you remain quiet in a conversation or try to talk about something, people will immediately assume things about you.

   I personally, rarely talk about offline life online, though if someone asks for it, I may answer in detail depending on the person and the situation. However, people will assume things like my relationships, hobbies, views, religion, sexual preference, etc. on an almost constant basis, because I do not talk about my personal life out of the blue in every chat window that can be opened.

3. The more aggressive you are, the more right you are

   This one is a classic. Many people will assume that if they are aggressive about something, they will appear to be right in almost any argument. It is as if the art of being pushy and aggressive and on the offensive becomes more important than the point being argued.

   I see arguments online regularly, where someone will be very aggressive in questioning something, and they will assume that just because they are aggressive means that they will be able to make the other person look bad. Usually, if one is paying attention, it seems that acting aggressive has nothing to do with being rational or logical. Some times people get aggressive even while asking a question, which makes me wonder: “if this person is so tense while simply asking a question through text and over a topic this person does not care about, how easy will it be to control and affect this person’s moods in real life?“

4. The act of acting weird will go unnoticed

   Some people think that since one can hide in the online world, one can do weird things and go unnoticed. This includes copying others, acting weird like blocking others on instant messengers simply because one feels jealous, one talks to someone else only to ask for advice, etc.

   I think it is very easy to both hide and get noticed in the online world. Noticing someone copying ideas can be tricky, but it does not go unnoticed. I notice people copying my writing and other styles all the time, and I also see people taking ideas from the comments they receive and posting them as their own on a regular basis too. These people basically assume that other people will not care in the online world. On the contrary, people do care a lot in the online world if they feel they are being cheated.

5. Inquiring about something means your knowledge is limited

   Many people think that if you ask questions, you do not know anything about some topic. When a person tells me about a feed reader or some new technology, I listen attentively and I ask questions. That act of asking questions makes many people assume that I do not know anything about the thing I am asking about. I personally have a character where I will ask questions even about things I know, since I want to know more and I want to hear about things from other people’s perspectives a lot.

   Sure, when you ask a question, you may not know something about the element that is being asked in the question, but you may know generally about that something. For example, I have rarely been talking about making money online as of today, but I have made a lot of money online through online businesses in the past. That is why it is funny when people approach me and start assuming that I do not know how to make money online, instead of asking me about it. I am guessing this is one of those things you need to brag about so more people can know, including potential employers.

So there you have it. That is a list of 5 random things that many people assume about others online. Can you think of some other things that people assume? Can you relate to something here, or do you have any opinion about any of these points or about assumptions in general?

Thank you for reading.

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1. Talk about typical and non-typical topics because of believing in them

   This is one of my greatest skills, and it is also one of my greatest weaknesses. The benefit? I can talk about things that can affect individuals and corporations, both typical and non-typical, both big and small, since I believe that both big and small things affect us all. The downside? Venturing off in different directions appears to be a form of “not having a clear focus” to many readers, and patience is something that is usually replaced by the need to find out things right away, even by myself.

   I like blogging about random topics and revolving them around certain themes. Take your own personal life as an example: when you live your life, you revolve everything in your life around your understanding of things, even if your understanding prompts you to be considerate of everyone else. Similarly, I believe that any blogging topic out there can be taken and applied to any kind of a belief you may have, or revolved around any topic.

   That is why I try to revolve the most random things around certain key elements, like reason.

   Many people seem to be doing the same thing, going from one topic to another, while not aiming at a certain thing. Many of such people are simply trying to get their post count up. Kudos to them!

2. Revolve the blog around readers

   I am not here to vent my emotions. I am here to vent my emotions into your thoughts and feelings. I am not desperate to be heard in the online word, so everything I write, I write to communicate something with you. Venting about something means to vent something off your chest; I am here to convey an understanding instead. Therefore, even though the topics are all mine, I want to show them to you so that you will understand the message I am trying to convey to you. That is why my blog revolves around both me and you.

   The downside of such an approach? Money. It is hard to make money when your blog revolves around bringing up topics that you think are good and practical for you and your readers. Otherwise, I can start talking about a 100 ways to make money through your blog every week, and I will start getting a lot of sponsors too. Maybe I can simply talk about one single way to make money every week to keep many parties happy, no?

   Many people think that saying “My blog is not possible without readers like you” is enough to show any kind of a bond or an appreciation, even when no other element on their blog appreciates readers. Most bloggers write about topics that please their advertisors or the companies, networks and groups they are affiliated with.

3. Respond to all comments, using a brain

   I have been trying to respond to all comments for several years now. Sometimes I respond to comments via e-mails, taking the discussion away from the blog and continuing it through e-mails. Most of the time, I will reply to each and every individual comment, not only to acknowledge a comment but to actually communicate with a person. I think communicating with all commentors on The Reasoner is something I can do blindfolded now.

   Why? Because I hate it when I write a long comment on someone else’s site, and they respond with only a “Thank you for your comment. ” Such comments simply tell me that a blogger feels obligated to reply to each comment, without actually communicating with me. Either do not reply, or stop using the same copy-paste responses to every comment you get. Maybe I should start a list outlining all the bloggers who look stupid trying to treat comment responses as an obligation.

4. I like keeping the number of posts on my site down

   I do not believe in outputting as many posts as possible in order to attract readers and advertisors and search engines. I want to attract others by the actual value that helps people, and not by promises that something may help people. That is why sometimes I can write 2 posts a day for months, and then I will slow down and write a post a week. What I write is more important to me than how much I write. People who write a lot of posts regularly usually tend to write things to lure in people. Some people who actually write a lot while giving value back to the readers are simply amazing. They exist, but they are hard to find. One place you can find them is in my bookmarks menu, though I remember their blog addresses by heart.

   In contrast, I try to keep my post count growth rate down. I got an offer last month to have a small ad placed on my site for $450 a month if I post an article everyday for at least 6 months, the way I have already been doing for a few months now. I declined the advertising offer, telling the advertisor to let me know if they would like to place an ad on my site if they did not have a posting schedule requirement. Since then, I have instead started posting less and running a poll asking you about the frequency of published posts you would like to see here. Why? I think it is a waste of my time to post a 100 posts in 2 months when only 5 of those posts get the message across. I feel the need to combine the ideas, thoughts, and pack a lot of punch into any post I write, so that each and every post gets attention and I get all my ideas and message across. Maybe I am currently quite satisfied eating 2 pieces of bread and drinking a glass of milk every day, using money earned in the offline world?

   For me, having a few nice posts is better than having a 100 useless posts that only aim to lure in people so that more money can be made. Money to go retire can be made easily by fooling people, but building legends, fortunes, relationships and brands takes a long time, and requires doing something realistic so that people in both the short and the long term, even when you are not around anymore, will say “Wow, he/she did help me! What a memory!” That is why I like working with companies which aim to build a brand through legacy, and to make money at the same time, and not companies which are only around to make money quickly. When you aim to build a brand or have a legacy, you tend to care more about other people, even if you love making money.

5. Value content over looks

   I believe that if one had to choose, content is more important than design. However, in reality, it seems that most human beings prefer something that appears nice instead of something that is ugly but has actual value. That is why even with design changes, my writing maintains a lot of the same philosophy of feelings in my content, even if the topics keep on changing. For me, content comes first, and if I have time, I work on the design slowly. Sure, looks can be important as Darren from ProBlogger argues, but without content, looks are usually used only to deceive people and to make some money. If someone can manage to have both quality content and a quality design on their blog, I think that person has a very nice diamond that they should utilize fully, quickly and carefully, to ensure that they are able to communicate with as many blog readers as possible and get their message across efficiently and effectively.

   Why? Maybe it is human nature, to be attracted to things that appeal to any of our senses, or our thoughts and feelings. It is important to present things nicely, since we are all like babies. You can get many babies to eat the toxic veggies if you act nice and talk in a friendly manner, but you will have a hard time getting the same babies to eat the veggies if you are dressed as a bigfoot and you keep growling at the top of your voice. The value you offer, the vegetables, are still the same, but for the baby, your presentation and your looks also becomes part of the content.

   Maybe I want us all to be non-typical babies?

So there you have it; a really nice bragging post. Among the thousand other things [haha], the above 5 are some of the common things that many bloggers try to copy from The Reasoner. Some give credit, some do not give credit, and some have come up with their own versions of similar ideas on their own.

Whatever the reason may be, I hope this list helps you improve some aspect of your blogging or life. I also hope that if you have any suggestions for any of these things, you can let me know so I can improve.

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