Ten years ago today I wrote my first post for this blog.
The blogging world has changed so much since then. At the time, the number of blogs out there was considerably more limited and I read my favorite ones individually by visiting them one by one to see if they had new posts.
Then I went to the first BlogHer conference in 2005 and expanded my blog reading horizons just around the time I started following blogs via RSS feed. About the same time, I started meeting more and more bloggers in my own town.
My blogging conference attendance peaked around 2011 and changes to my job started to limit my ability to attend. In the meantime, other social media platforms became more prominent and led to most bloggers—including me—cutting down significantly on posts.
Today, however, I attended a party in honor of one of my most longstanding local blogger friends who is moving to another state. While I was there, I saw more than a dozen good friends that I met through blogging and Twitter, and more people in the category stopped by after I left. Even though my blog is no longer what it once was, I can happily say that I have a wonderful group of friends that I very likely would never have met if it weren't for blogging.
That doesn't even count the additional dozens—perhaps hundreds—of other friends I've made at conferences and networking events related to blogging. It's not an exaggeration to say that I could probably go to any major city in the United States (and a few abroad) and rustle up someone to go to lunch with who met me because of my blog.
Any time I start to wonder if it might be time to let the blog go, I think of all of the wonderful relationships it has facilitated and it makes me determined to keep going.
Yes, I'm using a ridiculously outdated and technologically limited blogging platform, but that's really not so important. What is important is that I have a decade's worth of posts about my life and the things that have interested me during that time.
Thank you to everyone who reads this for hanging in there with me to find out what happens next. I don't know for sure that I will ever get back to the kind of regular posting schedule I had back in the early days, but I appreciate that you've all stuck around and keep reading what I have to say. Here's to another decade of great memories!
Photo credit: Marcus T Ward
Average Jane - Congrats!
I remember how excited I was to finally meet you at BogHer after reading AJ and comment conversations. It felt like catching up with a good friend at a reunion of BBFs.
Social media, and blogging in particular, gives back
more than it takes.
Posted by: TobyDiva | February 16, 2014 at 05:59 AM
Happy birthday to you,
happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday dear Average Jane,
happy birthday to yoooou!
(...and many more!)
Posted by: Will Notb | February 16, 2014 at 06:27 PM