As of 2:30 AM Sunday, October 18, I felt like a free man. I submitted my final paper in my last Liberty University course, Systematic Theology II. If I get even a decent grade for it, I will be finished with the Master's in Religion program. Thus, my 12-day absence from blogging, now to be recommenced. My studies have impacted the frequency with which I have been able to blog and the depths that I have been able to explore while doing so. I hope that changes now...I think.
This blog has accomplished the purposes for which I started it about a year and a half ago. I wanted to 1) air my political views, 2) practice my writing and 3) interact with others on political issues of the day.
Definitely, the first two have come to pass, but I'm not sure how much this blog impacts #3 anymore. The cyberworld has changed, even in the last 18 months. When I started this blog, I probably had 10 Facebook friends. I closed in on the 700th last week, not as many as some I know, but higher than the average, which, according to Facebook itself is somewhere around 130. I can post a brief status update (max 420 characters) and almost instantly receive several hits in response; I can then continue that conversation for days if I want to. (That happened last week with a discussion on Anita Dunn.)
More importantly, though, Twitter has..."exploded" is the best term I can come up with. I had a Twitter account for several months, but never got serious about it until about 9 weeks ago. As of today, I have well over 300 followers and am following over 500 myself, all of whom are avid political junkies.
So do most people really read blogs anymore? To be honest, I hardly do...and I have one that I claim to hope others will patronize. Yet, I'm mostly not returning the favor; I just don't think to do it after Facebook and Twitter. And I can't remember when the last time was that I left a comment!
I do read Red State every day and go to Townhall several times a week. Red State, though, is more like a daily activist news feed and their Editor, Erick Erickson, sends a Morning Briefing out every day with the top stories, which are invariably timely. (Erick is also on Facebook and Twitter. Just in case you wondered. He Retweeted one of my Tweets today. Are you impressed?)
So I'm going to keep doing this for a while and see where it goes. But I wonder how much longer blogging will be something that much of anyone sticks with for a significant period of time.
I want to try a couple of things and see if they work, doing some things with graphics and photos and video...more than just text, to kind of spice it up a bit. So we'll see...
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