To Blog Or Not To Blog?

Hello,

My name is Sean. I am writing a thesis on blogging around the world and I came upon your interesting site while researching. I would really appreciate it if you could answer any of the following questions; any response both long or short would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Why do you blog?

Y: Dear Sean - Shalom! Blog writing fills a niche that article writing cannot fulfill. Blogging tells the story of the daily life. Blogging can describe a fleeting feeling that is not necessarily your philosophy of life, but just a thought that occurred to you. In this way blogging is a companion to news sites because it gives a glimpse into the personal and the real life of a region or group of people...

How many people do you estimate read your blog?

About a thousand a day. Our movie, however, was seen by hundreds of thousands and went around the net virally.

Do you hope that your blog can influence people or accomplish something or do you just blog for the sake of writing?

Our blog is certainly geared to call on action. Our focus is Jewish immigration to Israel (in Hebrew: Aliyah). We are calling on American Jews to choose Israel as their home. However, we cannot just talk about the philosophy of Aliyah every day, or push our ideology every day. We understand that to make people fall in love with Israel we need to show them our perspective on the beauties of the country, and to get them involved in the nitty gritty of life here. We want to show them the supermarkets and the children. We also want to help defray the image of Israel that one sees in the news, which by the news' nature, is always bad.

We also try to bring our political/philosophical/religious outlook down to a people level. This means that someone can email me directly, or comment on the blog and have a discourse with a real person and not just an anonymous writer on CNN. We try to be very real and to share ourselves and our lives as much as we can so that people know that our message comes from the heart.

Do you know other people in your community who blog?

Sure. Like minded people get together and I cross-promote often. While we try to be a good blog, I do not feel any competitive aspect. Maybe another important point is that there is no money involved here. No ads, no employees, no salaries. So it's a labor of love and I think that readers sense that.

Do you get really supportive/negative feedback from your readers? Do you have any examples?

Check out this link. Feel free to write again Sean. All the best, Yishai