TheBusyB is the name of a service I was thinking of offering at my small business, Peak Services. My thought was that I could help people develop and maintain their blogs by doing some of their research (e.g., looking for web sites or pages they might want to share), suggesting topics for posts, collecting images, audio clips, or video clips of possible use, helping them outline their writing and clarify their purpose, and so forth.
Web technology is advancing so rapidly—driven in large part by competition among rival developers—that anyone who can email can also blog. You no longer need to log in to your blog, create a post, and publish it. You can now send an email message to a mailbox linked to your blog and publish your posts easily and immediately. Despite this, I thought some people might want TheBusyB service.
Japanese teapot from an antique store.
This line of thinking was inspired by a friend and fellow writer whose publisher had suggested she create a blog to attract people who might be interested in reading and purchasing her book. I have another writer friend who has just finished a novel, and it was possible, I thought, that she too might be asked to create a blog by the publisher of her book.
But do we need more blogs? And will these actually produce the intended results, e.g., motivate people to buy books?
In May of last year, I created Some Perfect Future. My desire was to create a site that would not focus on me but would instead present my work and ideas—that is, a site that would record how I thought, created, and, to some degree, lived. Anyone who knows me well knows that my thinking and writing have a strong didactic element. This, I hoped, would give my site strength and interest but not overpower it.
In the fourteen months that have passed since the creation of Some Perfect Future, I feel I have learned much about the power of sites and blogs to influence and inform people's thinking. I have also learned that doing yields wisdom and knowledge and, consequently, there is yet a great deal for me to do. I feel that my site has not been influential, but it has been able to present an alternative way of writing, of creating art, and of evaluating those acts in the large context of living.
Do we need more blogs? I would say no, but then as soon as these words are uttered, new blogs will come along to entrance, entertain, and re-envision the concept and purpose of blogs. Can blogs produce the intended results? This is a complex question whose answer depends not only on the quality of the blogger's work but also on the willingness of visitors to respond to what they read and encounter.
I will return to this subject in a future post.