Connecting with people on the web - Is being on Fluther more time consuming than blogging?

I think blogging takes up a lot of time…but maybe I write too much?

I’m not sure I understand the question. Because Fluther is more time consuming than blogging, is Fluther blogging? A blog is a publishing outlet; not all blogs have the option for readers to reply or comment (such as the very popular Daring Fireball). Because all of the content posted here requires replies, I feel that Fluther is closer to the definition of a forum.

I know that since I joined fluther, I am blogging a whole lot less, though I am not writing about my life or experiences so much as sharing opinions here, so it’s not like it’s replacing or duplicating. I just run out of time. Perhaps I need to cut back a little? :)

Fluther is not a blog. Fluther is a forum. I really wish people would realize this distinction, then again there are more people who don’t understand such technologies than do understand, and it’s just one price I pay for having tech knowledge.

I strongly disagree with your statement regarding the “connected community” aspect of the blogosphere. In fact, I loathe that very word. I would find it hard pressed to find someone who believed that StormFront and Daily Kos are in any way communities connected or related to each other.

Blogs tend to revolve around single issues or topics (though variety ones exist), are written by few people and read by many many times more. While they encourage communication and interaction of all people, it’s generally a top down manner of presenting information: here’s my blog post, you read it and comment.

Fluther on the other hand covers each topic or issue equally, is written by a much larger audience, and the fundamental point of it is the interaction between initial author and subsequent commenters. It is an all around method of presenting information. Here’s my idea or question, you read and comment, I and others reply and the conversation evolves.

By my definition, Fluther and all websites in general are NOT a part of the blogosphere.

I don’t post to a blog so I don’t know about that part but fluther seems very interactive and charmingly addictive.

@richardhenry – Well, Fluther could be considered as a special form of blogging. Is this special form more or less time consuming than normal blogging like what’s happening on blogger.com? Or people don’t see Fluther as blogging and then there’s still the question of time being spend.

@mattbrowne I don’t understand why the level of time consumption establishes whether or not Fluther would be considered blogging. A blog is a publishing column; you don’t post to Fluther to publish, you post to Fluther to ask a question. This is much closer to the traditional definition of an Internet forum.

Fluthering is more fun than blogging thus I devote more time to the Fluther.

Fluther isn’t a blog.
Time is what you make of it. You could spend 8 hours a day on Fluther or none.
You could spend 8 hours a day writing on your personal blog or commenting on other’s blogs. Or none.

¡Yo no comprendo!

I don’t see how posting the stuff I post on my blog would be appropriate here on Fluther…

Disregarding your comparison between blogging and Fluther, I’ll just address the time issue. I suspect that blogging is less time consuming than Fluthering. Blogging: Make a first draft, edit, post, go on about your life. Check back later to see if there are comments to respond to. Fluthering: Ask a question, get a nearly instantaneous response, respond. Meanwhile… see other questions you’d like to answer, answer, respond to other answers, see the sibling questions and wander off over there, back to your question, respond, lather, rinse, repeat… Fluther is much more interactive, not to mention kind of addicting!

I remember to update my blog about once a month. I visit fluther about every day. So, fluther does take more time, but it doesn’t bother me.

@augustlan – I spend hours drafting a blog entry, writing it out, re-reading it then posting it. Then, after it’s posted, I regularly get comments that ask further questions on the subject, so in the end, I’ve spent a lot of time in addition to the previously mentioned hours on a single blog post. Fluthering takes far less time.

Then again, because Fluther takes so little time, the hurdle to do it is lower, so I do that more often.

@richardhenry We aren’t allowed to ask enough questions to last very long. I use mine up in the space of a few minutes. I spend the majority of my time answering them.
@augustian I spend far more time reading the bloggers that are on my list than writing my blog submissions, and then commenting on the blogs. It is far more time consuming than fluther. I check in to fluther frequently throughout the day, and spend a few minutes here, but the biggest bulk of my time is spent elsewhere.

@Vincentt and @Yarnlady I stand corrected. Having never actually blogged myself, I apparently have an incorrect mental picture of what it entails. My apologies!

@augustlan – well, it seriously depends on who blogs, and on the type of blog. I have other blogs that I spend not nearly as much time on :P

Then again, what @Yarnlady said holds true as well: I also spend quite some time reading and replying to blogs. And that’s more than Fluther and more often than Fluther :).

@richardhenry and @Dave – I agree with your view that Fluther isn’t blogging (other people might have other views). So if it’s two different things, what would you consider more time consuming?