Down With the Blogging Parrots!
This is a guest post by Joe Wiedenbeck, the owner of The Pampered Parrot and a guest blogger on many pet related websites.
144,217,571. What does this number represent? At the time of writing this, there are 144,217,571 blogs according to Blog Pulse. 52,055 new blogs and 964,971 new posts indexed in the last 24 hours. These numbers are quite astounding. Do we really have that much to say of importance as a human race or is 90% of this parroting and unoriginal? I have nothing against blogging or those who do it. In fact I am doing it right now (well not literally because you are reading this). I love to write as a hobby and I frequently guest post for others in the pet realm but I can’t help but look at these numbers cynically and think that something is amiss here.
Now I am not a mathematician and personally I almost did not do this for fear of being shunned by the Albert Einstein’s of the world, but this means that less than one percent of the blogs recorded by Blog Pulse were updated in the last 24 hours. This can mean a few things…
There are bloggers and ploggers. Yes I said ploggers, I just made it up and now it has officially become a word. If someone has a claim for coining this term then I am sorry for infringing on your creativity. Ploggers , short for parrot and blogger, refers to the same things being repeated over and over and even quite brazenly at times. Whether it is the theft of someone else’s writing spun or unspun, blogger groupies repeating or retweeting what their guru’s are blogging about, or just the same old crap about curing a yeast infection where you are mysteriously whisked off to a really bad looking sales page asking you for $49.99 to fix your problem, there really is not that much to say of importance.
Personally I say let the real bloggers carry on with their original writings so that their groupies can read what interest them. Tell grandma she does not need to get with the times and start a blog and squash those PLR (private label rights) affiliate marketers who clutter up the blogosphere with so much junk it looks like a cyber toilet overflowing with binary code.
If you have something to say you might consider keeping it to yourself. If you can’t resist joining the chorus, then don’t be a plogger. Be original and creative, write with passion and use your own mind. Write about what interest you and stay on topic. Otherwise, you might run out of something to say and make that pivotal mistake of becoming a plogger with a stagnant and uninteresting blog, thereby committing the sin of ploggery.
FYI, My African Grey parrot can repeat much of what I say but the day I see him sitting at my desk blogging about it is the day I turn off my computer never to power it up again.
This is a guest post by Joe Wiedenbeck, the owner of The Pampered Parrot and a guest blogger on many pet related websites.
LOL- you have a point here!
And if your parrot does start a blog, can you send me a link so I can follow it? Could be interesting!
Oh, so ‘plogger’ is the new term for those without original content and those who re-hash other blogger’s posts. Groundbreaking….really.
Hi Joe,
The numbers are sketchy but certainly close to those I’ve seen from a number of credible sources. Here’s some other numbers to make your head swim. 86% of Internet users cut and paste content. Most likely to share on blogs and social networks. There are more than 20 billion sharing actions per month. Again, probably a good portion of those actions are filling “useless” blogs.” But I think what you’ll find most interesting is that 54% of the more than 200,000,000 blogs counted by PEW are updated daily. Now that’s a lot of consistency and dedication.
I might argue your point that some people shouldn’t blog. What’s the harm? We all have sophisticated filtering abilities these days. Why not let people use the web for self-expression and/or for putting their own personal spin on stuff they find around the web. After all, isn’t that what social networking has promised us? A voice. Let them be heard.
Squawwk!
Best,
Mary
This is a post I wish I had written. I’m always amazed with the current Internet condition. Middle aged and young people discovering concepts like positive thinking and happiness, breathlessly writing and rewriting how to achieve the best from life.
I have been guilty of rewriting tech how to posts – not plagiarizing – with information I know is available somewhere else. Worse, I hold back what I really want to say because it will offend someone.
Even a post like this is, in the strictest sense, negative. I love it.
Truth is not about polarization.
so many blogs, but yet, only a few of them get notice
“If you have something to say you might consider keeping it to yourself. ”
Would have been better if you’d applied that thinking to this lame post before publishing.
I agree with Mary. No harm, no foul. While some my not be as experienced in writing as others, this is one way that every one can let the world know what is on their mind. Why not let people use the web for self-expression and/or for putting their own personal spin on stuff they find around the web. After all, many of us are not professionals, but then again that is only based off the opinions of other people.