Just moments ago, I realized one of the really important things about blogs, and why they’re so popular. They’re updated regularly. It’s incredibly simple and yet powerful.
The biggest complaint people have about the internet – from inception to now – is that people put up sites and then walk away and never do anything with them again. Even though we live in a world where people are supposedly technologically advanced, most people wouldn’t recognize html if it bit them in the ass. So, you find really sophisticated businesses that have incorrect hours on their websites and other such foolishness, not to mention the people who have “last updated November 2003” on their pages.
But blogs have fixed that… it’s easy to update. The question is why people see blogs that way, but not websites, which are also easy to update.
Occasionally I do website updating for people who just need something very basic done – a few changes here and there – but not something they want to pay their designer to do. It’s not work I especially enjoy, other than the part where people are amazed by it, but it’s not work I mind either. Maybe this needs to become a more formalized business.
It seems to be a largely untapped market – reasonably priced, regular updating. Not the kind that usually comes with your package – three changes for $50 over the next year. If your page only changes three times a year, no one is going to have reason to return more often than that.
Hence the blogging concept. Of course, there are tons of programs to do webpages that are as easy as blogs, but people don’t see them that way. The psychology of the internet age is a continually changing, fascinating thing.
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