Why are blogs so popular?

Sometimes I wonder why blogging has become so popular. According to Technorati, http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/Slide0004.html, there were over 15 million blogs in March of 07.  How many more blogs are out there hidden behind firewalls or passwords that can't be counted?  And how much has that number grown over the last three years?  I tried to google and find the answer...I think we've stopped counting. 

Blogs allow us to interact online in a similar fashion to the way we do offline. We can talk about daily happenings, post pictures of our family and pets, discuss what is on the menu for dinner tonite (and share the recipes being used) and keep in touch with family without ever having to pick up the phone.  Is this a good thing? 

Blogging is a medium that allows us to learn about a person you may have never had the opportunity to meet, making it possible to reach anyone, anywhere in the world.  By reading their blog and providing your thoughts, blogging allows us to establish 'friendships' all via cyberspace.

When you blog, you are free to be who we want to be.....maybe this is why blogs are so popular?

Now What?

Ok, so I started my blog yesterday but now what? I have been playing around all morning trying to "customize it" and my end result is basically a headache. I think I need a help button for the help feature, as the answers provided to me are about as clear as mud.

There there's this thing called ad sense. Can anyone tell me in plain English how to go about using it? I understand the concept, you can earn money when someone clicks on one of your ad sense ads. But that is where my understanding ends. They supposedly are being helpful by walking you through the steps of how to get an ad, but during the process they ask you to add 'channels', image url's, 'feeds'..........arrgh!! If you click on the "help" button next to these terms, a new web page opens with supposed instructions, then asks you "was this information helpful"? If you click no, that's it. No additional assistance. So I'm back at the beginning on having no clue on how to use ad sense.

It is also not clear to me how one searches for a blog?! I of course can find my own, and I can find those of friends who have provided me their url....but where to I do a general search? I'm really starting to feel my 4.0 in college was a scam seeing how I am failing this "simple & easy" way to blog.

So I go back to my usual technique, using the Google search engine for help and guess what results come up? The help section that I'm already using on Blogger. Now what??

Why am I starting a blog?

Hmm good question. Why is it I feel I need to keep up with the Joneses and start a blog like everyone else? Who first came up with the idea anyway? According to NY Magazine, January 1994 Swarthmore student Justin Hall creates first blog ever, Links.net. Sixteen years ago? Really? And I'm just starting my own now? Yikes! I did not realize I was that far behind with the times. I wonder what else I am behind on? Once I get this blog process down pat, will there be another new fangled tool out there that I need to learn?

Whenever I try something new, I always turn to Google and research the 'best' way or 'how to' do my new venture successfully. Umm, when I googled the word "blogging" it said there were about 66,100,000 matches to that word. Yikes! How does one choose between 66 million websites which few are the 'best' to learn about blogging? I have trouble choosing what I want to eat off of a menu restaurant. There is no way I will be able to make a decision with all those choices.

Then of course there are the wishful thinking blog websites claiming you can make money from the comfort of your own home simply by blogging? Seriously? If that is true, wouldn't the unemployment rate plummet as there would be a new "job" for just about everyone?

I am not sure what the answer to all my confusion is.........I guess it makes sense for me to name my blog "Hmm and Why?"