Blogging for Something

People sometimes wonder what the motivation for blogging is. When I think about it, I’ve been doing this thing before ‘blogging’ was cool (on devdev.org, then BusinessBits) and I ask myself: Why keep doing it, Devin?

Money
I quickly snap back at myself “it’s all about the benjamins, baby!” I don’t mean to brag or anything but I just received my first TLA payment. It came to a grand total of $3.08. Now are things making more sense? I’m in it for the money

Women
Oh, and the women. I’m convinced that Sara is my biggest fan (rightfully so). Joe visits sometimes too (yet never comments, jerk). Without all my adoring female fans out there I’d have little motivation to blog. Without that constant desire to impress them, you (the reader) would have missed out on so much. Like that one time I “broke” the story about Google’s SMS Terms of Service. Yeah, they can log your messages. Oh, or that one (actually 11) time I said MySpace sucks. Without my intellect and insight you may never have realized it…

Fame
Scrivs really put it best: “I’m fucking internet famous…” Seriously, I look at my number of subscribers and realize that 200 people have found this site a worthy read (every time I post I wonder why that number hasn’t yet dropped). Not to mention the hundreds of MySpace users that love me for writing about MySpace and thinking I can somehow fix their login. Oh, and the dozens of indians and O’Reilly employees that have visited my free [FIRO-B][6] tool and figured that reading my description of the scores is too much to grasp on their own. I’m really famous because these sample people decided to copy, paste their score, and leave a comment asking for my personal opinion. First, go take the assessment then come back and read on…

I’ve compiled all their questions and here it is: you all have personal needs including affection, control, and intimacy. Sometimes your numbers are high, signifying a high need. Sometimes they’re low, suggesting the opposite. Take the results with a grain of salt and then compare with friends, co-workers, peers. When you’ve done that go ahead and PayPal $5 to devin at devinreams dot com. That’s my consultancy fee. Thanks in advance!

Recognition
There’s nothing better than waking up one morning and seeing that someone has linked to you. I was especially excited when my little (but bigger) brother put me in his blog. Look, now the circle is complete. The internet is great at making circles. I’ve even made a circle with Tom Peters! I guess I just really like it when people give credit when it’s due… which it’s not in my case… so I guess I just really like credit. In fact, I was left a comment the other day recognizing my blog and how cool it is. The comment instructed me to email him with my name and email… no, recognition doesn’t mean you have to know my name.

So, why the hell do you blog? Or why do you read them? Or mine? Feel free to answer any of those questions in the comments.

Update: Within 10 minutes I was ‘BlogTipped’ by Diane. See? There’s two reasons I blog right there…