What's the point of having lots of blog followers?

To feel good about your ability to entertain people.

To get your blog out there. It doesn’t matter if you get paid or not, as long as you enjoy having an audience.

I have no idea. I have a public blog on Multiply, which means everyone who is a contact of my contacts can read it and I get multiple readers that I don’t know. It is pretty meaningless to me.

Some people have become moderately or very successful and eventually turned it into a paying venture.

Large numbers of readers can be turned into advertising revenue, although most people are happy just to cover the expenses of running their website.

The vast majority do it because they truly enjoy it and are happily surprised when it becomes successful.

Would you answer questions on Fluther if you knew no one was going to read it? No one wants to spend time talking to a wall or themselves. Without an audience a blog is nothing but a diary / journal. Not to mention the benefits you get from having a larger audience, like: feedback, discussion amongst your users in the comment section, possible networking connections, etc.

@markyy No, but I only have 2 followers on Twitter – both of them friends that I hang out with in real life at least once a week. I have no desire to have 50,000 random people following me on Twitter – I just want my friends following me. I can understand it more with political blogs or blogs dedicated towards an intellectual exchange of ideas, but when it’s just about your daily life (you went to the grocery store, they were out of the vegetable you wanted, now you’re trying a new shampoo that was recommended to you by a family friend) it seems so pointless – and vain to think that tons of people would be interested in the milieu of your daily life.

Well those aren’t going to be the blogs which develop a huge following.

And there is an essential difference between Twitter and a blog.

And there’s also an essential difference between a Live Journal account and a blog.

Or at least there should be and was originally. But with the advent of all the free competing services things get all morphed together. I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing but it is the way it is.

I’m extremely selective about which blogs I read as well as Twitter accts. I follow.

I don’t regard it as a numbers game. I’m far more interested in quality than quantity.

But for some people it’s the reverse. I think that both Facebook and Twitter contributed to the whole number emphasis.

Remember when Ashton Kutcher had a bet with somebody as to who could get the most Twitter followers?

Talk about pointless…....

I can’t even remember who the other person was but it was a really big deal for awhile.

@Buttonstc It was CNN. He bet Larry King he could get more followers than CNN. Apparently, CNN didn’t think to say “oh, hey, most of our viewers are older than your average tweeter, and the age of the average Ashton fan is lower than our target demographic due to not being old enough to vote”.

There is a difference between a LiveJournal and a blog, but from most of the ones on Blogger and Wordpress, you’d never know it.

Yeah now I remember. Larry definitely isn’t as sharp as he used to be but he tries.

I’ll miss him but I think it’s a good thing he’s retiring before he really totally embarrasses himself.

Helen Thomas should have done that before it was too late but…...

@Buttonstc So true. Course, her slide down was really, really fast.

I also think it’s time for Larry to retire because his platform is outdated now that anyone can have a website and a blog and a twitter. They don’t need to go on LKL anymore.

I don’t really go to his Internet site unless I want to look up a transcript of a previous show.

I just watch most of the interviews he does on tv. It’s refreshing to see an unbiased interviewer without any left wing or right wing or any other agenda except curiosity.

People have criticized him for not being harder on some controversial people. But there
are tons of confrontational reporters out there trying to make a name for themselves if that’s what one wants.

I enjoy finding out what makes people tick and his style of interviewing gets people to open up.

In a world increasingly devoted to tabloid sensationalism and provoking conflict, his is a refreshing change of pace.

That’s why he’s lasted this long and that’s why I’ll miss him.

That’s also why I miss Ted Koppel and really rarely watch Nightline anymore. Obviously he was more confrontational but not just for it’s own self. Plus he kept himself incredibly well informed. Like Larry, he was really one of a kind. Totally unique.

The point is the same as the point of having people listen to you when you’re telling a story, as opposed to telling it to your walls.

@Vincentt But, why lots and lots? A few well known friends can be much more rewarding.

Some people just like attention, that’s all. That’s the point. And some people don’t.