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Personal Blogs

A personal blog can be a place where a blogger talks about his or her daily life, daily outtake on things, or even opinions about certain topics. A personal touch is added where the personal and human emotion and feeling and analysis, among several other things, are given preference over business or non-personal attitudes. I also recently talked about how personal blogs can and should have subniches, something which has not yet been done effectively because many people still think personal blogging is not a niche at all. Spoken-For and BubblesSoc are examples of how personal blogs can compete with non-personal blogs very effectively with interesting, personal designs and useful perspective on things.

Non-Personal Blogs

A non-personal blog can be a place where a blogger does not aim to get personal with the readers. For example, places like Google Analytics Blog, MyBlogLog Blog, and even CopyBlogger are places where the focus of an entity is on a certain topic and promoting an idea to the readers. In this case, Google and MyBlogLog blogs are simply advertisements and news blogs, promoting a certain company and its products and services. CopyBlogger is a great example of a non-personal blog that delivers very useful information to people looking for help with online copy writing.

Are there any other categories?

Yes, and I think you are looking at one of them. A third kind of category is a hybrid of personal blogs, non-personal blogs and a few other things. The personal message, ideas, ideals and values are never let go, and the actual style changes depending on the message at hand. I also like to think that every blog can be a personal blog, if certain elements are present in that blog.

Do you prefer non-personal blogs over personal blogs? How about your own blog, or the blogs you read?

What is your opinion about this? Do you prefer reading or writing non-personal blogs over personal blogs? Would you consider a personal blogger as important as a non-personal blogger?

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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Many personal blogs usually take advantage of having password protected entries, like SP’s site. SP could write things about, let’s say, Bes, as in “Bes is so retarded, Bes actually tries to communicate with cats, squirrels, penguins and whales!” SP could then password protect that entry, so that I do not see what she wrote about me.

Password protected content on Non-Personal Blogs

Another way to use password protected entries could be to have content reserved only for a specific type of readers, like readers who pay. A blog or a site could have such premium content, that it could charge readers a monthly fee in order to receive specific or customized passwords to access all the password-protected content. For example, I could have a special subscription section on this site catering to non-personal blog readers, where I have videos of me trying to kidnap whales, but instead I end up getting kidnapped by whales. I could password protect that content, and give Jess that password if Jess pays me $500. Does that sound like a good deal, Jess?

Password protected content has drawbacks too

While password protected content can offer benefits to many blogs, any password protected entries can have drawbacks too, for both blogs and blog readers. Regular visitors may not be able to access information simply because they do not know the password, and thus a blog may get more criticism than praise. Also, people who cannot afford to pay me $500 for my “How to kidnap a whale and get kidnapped instead!” videos may not be able to see the epic tale I have to tell. Password protected entries limit access for many people, and that may not be cool in the eyes of many.

So, do you like having and seeing password-protected entires on blogs? What is your opinion about them?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you.

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• Write personal opinions to share with others.
• Earn money directly through ads on your blog.
• Keep an online diary.
• Practice skills, such as your writing, recording, and other skills.
• Establish an authority on different topics through your blog.
• Promote your offline business.
• Keep in touch with friends or family, or others online.
• Be like others, since others have blogs too.
• Pass time without being bored, and a blog helps you pass time easily.
• Maintain your job, since it may require you to blog.
• Pass a class, since your class may require you to blog or comment on some classwork-related blog.

So, why do you blog? Why do you own or run any kind of a site? Can you think of others reasons for which you may be blogging?

Please let me know what you think of the above, and what you think of this question. Thank you for reading.

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What are niches and subniches?

A niche is simply another word for specialization, or a specific category for something. For example, the newspaper industry is a category, and newspapers focusing on traffic in your city have a very specific niche, or specialization, in the broader, more general newspaper industry. Chris Garrett wrote an article on the concept of niches on Performancing back in 2005, which you may find interesting. You may also read a post by Anthony Baggett in which he talked about his site Antbag focusing on not focusing on a niche.

I am not sure if other people use the same word, but a “subniche” is a word I just came up with, while talking with Valerie, to express how someone can specialize within something that has already been assumed to be specialized in by other people.

By a subniche, I am simply referring to a subcategory within a broader category, which can be a niche. Many people consider a niche to be a very specific and a very targeted category of something. In my view, however, as the blogging world starts to mature further, we need to start focusing on targets within targets, and subcategories within categories. Thus, in my view, a subniche is a specific niche within a niche.

Personal blogging niche is the most crowded, yet one of the most underdeveloped blogging niches on the internet

The personal blogging arena is one of the most under-developed blogging niches on the internet. The personal blogging market has without much doubt become very crowded, but personal bloggers are not yet specializing in specific personal blogging subcategories. Sure, we can read all sorts of personal posts ranging from cats attacking their owners to bloggers using their keyboards to play baseball. However, most of such personal blog posts are random. They move from one topic to another, trying their best to be the perfect examples of a personal blog:

Since a personal life has a lot of random things happening every minute, why can personal blogs not focus on everything at the same time, all the time?

That very question is the reason there are too many general personal blogs on the internet today, since many people think that personal bloggers do not have to follow any rules or guidelines, and can simply post whatever they wish, whenever they wish and however they wish. That same question is also the reason personal blogs have yet to mature into more specific and specialized forms.

Many, if not most, personal blogs are too random

Majority of the personal blogs today are too general in their writing. Personal blogging is thought by many to have no clear focus because of the misunderstanding that personal blogs must treat personal lives as being too big and general. Personal bloggers have yet to stake claims in different types of personal blogs. If you look deep enough, you will realize that the personal blogging niche can be broken down into dozens, of not hundreds, of sub-topics or subniches that different personal bloggers can choose from to focus on.

Bes Z’s 7 Types of Personal Blogging Subniches

To give you an example of what I mean by personal blogging subniches, I present to you the following 7 subcategories of the main personal blogging niche that need to be developed and specialized further in my view. I came up with the different subniche names to help you remember what each subniche is all about.

1. Personal Emotions Blogging

   Emotional blogging, or Emo blogging, usually revolves around emotions. Personal Emotional Bloggers talk about emotions they feel daily due to different things. This is a very specific niche where people talk about emotions they feel daily due to all sorts of random things. This can be divided further into smaller categories, where different emotions are categorized based on things that trigger such emotions.

2. Personal Criticism Blogging

   This is the kind of personal blog where a blogger critically analyzes different things and probably criticizes things. Personal Criticism Bloggers may even be critical of their own actions, feelings and emotions, and will explain such criticisms in their criticizing posts. People in such a subniche may focus simply on criticizing things they run into in their daily lives, including their own selves.

3. Personal Positive/Negative Blogging

   These kinds of personal blogs focus on the positive and negative things that are seen in daily lives. Personal Positive/Negative Bloggers do not need to criticize things, though they can talk specifically about things they like and things they do not like. Again, this is a very specific niche that needs to be specialized in.

4. Personal Relationships blogging

   This can be a big separate category on its own. Many personal bloggers talk about relationships in their lives. Such relationships range from dating relationships to relationships with parents, and even business relationships. This subcategory of life, relationships with others, can be specialized in very easily by many personal bloggers who already post a lot about their analysis of the relationships they observe and the relationships they themselves run into daily. A Personal Relationships Blogger may even devote their entire blog to one specific relationship, like relationship with their child, a parent, a sibling, a spouse, or even a friendly relationship with a specific neighbor.

5. Personal Moods blogging

   Many people go through mood swings every hour of the day, and my recent series on moody signs of moody people may have shed some more light on the topic for you. Personal Moods Bloggers can specialize on moody blogging, where they either blog about their mood swings, or they blog because of their mood swings. I think this can be one of the most random type of blogging types out there, as such bloggers can change the entire focus of their blogs based on their moods.

   While many personal blogs today talk about random things because of feeling the need to write such things on specific days, you should know that Personal Moods Blogs will be different than the usual types of blogs we see today, as Personal Mood Blogs depend solely on the mood swings and revolve around the mood swings and talk about mood swings as being influential, whereas today’s blogs simply post random stuff because of feeling different everyday. A Personal Moods Blogger specifically outlines the mood swings that cause different blog posts to be written.

6. Personal Feelings Blogging

   Feelings blogs can usually revolved around 2 specific feelings: happy feelings and unhappy feelings. Personal bloggers can also specialize in confused feelings if they wish. Personal Feelings Bloggers can talk either about the things that made them happy unhappy, or confused, or the things that happened because of the bloggers feeling happy or unhappy, or even confused. The same way Personal Moods Bloggers rely on moods to run and revolve their blogs around and explain the moods behind their posts, Personal Feelings Bloggers run and revolve their blogs around feelings, and actually cite those feelings so that readers can know which happy, unhappy or even confusing feelings caused which actions or blog posts to be written, and why.

7. General/Random Personal Blogging

   This is the type of personal blogs you see today. General or Random Personal Bloggers can blog about anything, as they try to cover the concept of personal blogs in general and in depth while at the same time covering everything in their lives that they can. Thus, many of the personal bloggers you see today could continue to blog about personal things, since that would become a specialty of its own.

Those are 7 of the many other Personal Blogging Subniches that can be developed further by personal bloggers. Since the very concept of a personal daily life is probably unique to almost every blogger, the possibilities are endless when it comes to creating a subniche within the main personal blogging category.

Life is full of different things. Personal blogs should also specialize in different personal things instead of not specializing in anything.

The fact that life itself is full of random things when analyzed with care makes many personal bloggers forget the fact that life is divided into smaller parts, and that personal blogs can also be divided into smaller parts with each part dealing with a specific part of life. There is a lot of potential for specialization and categorization within the main personal blogging niche.

The personal blogging niche is far from being crowded, because of the possibilities of having personal blogging subniches. In fact, I think the personal blogging niche has the highest growth potential than any other type of blogging niche, because it focuses on life. Life itself probably has no boundaries other than death, and many would argue that even death is not a sign of a limitation of life. Why, then, should personal blogs focus on life with only one perspective, the general perspective, when personal blogs can instead focus on life in depth by talking about specific and different things?

Wait! What about people who think personal blogging is not a niche at all?!

Of course, many people still say that personal blogs are not niches at all, that they are too general or boring to have any kind of a niche. For such people, the very concept of having subniches within the personal blogging niche may have sounded weird throughout this article. Many people take the fact that some prominent bloggers got their blogging ideas from their personal blogging, like Darren Rowse talking about getting an idea for a niche from his personal blog, to assume that personal blogs are not niches. Personal blogs are niches. Making money from niches is a completely different topic and issue to pursue, and should not be confused with the concept of what niches are, and how and why personal blogs are niches.

I am working on an article, to be published soon, that talks about the reasons why and how personal blogging is definitely a niche.

Thank you, and please let me know what you think!

Please let me know what you think of this article, and about the 7 different subniches I mentioned. Also, please let me know whether or not you agree that personal blogging is itself a niche. Thank you for reading.

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