I’ve been thinking of changing my blog’s theme for a while. Why? After a long hiatus I find that this one, which I liked very much for a long time, does not support many of the features that newer themes can support. I am always suspicious of change, preferring instead to keep on going with the inertia of the moment, which, to be honest, was good for a while. Also, if you don’t know what more you could’ve had, you never tend to miss it. As a result, I just kept going with this one.
Yet, as a person I am curious. So I went and did a tour of other blog posts, help sites and some listservs where people discuss the old classic vs. the new “block” themes. I find listservs fascinating not only because of the insights they give into matters talked about but also into the state of mind of the person posting. The interactions provide me insights into human nature, which, obviously, is of interest to a writer.
Most of the posts, about one to two years old, were from angry people who hated the newer themes mostly because of lack of ease of use. When I read their emotions, I couldn’t help but think that they were people just like me, angry at and suspicious of change. Or were they?
I am interested in understanding what my needs might be first. Am I interested in focusing on individual blog posts or focusing on the collective, a combination of several posts together to present to the reader? Am I interested in writing a lot of material for associated pages that are not blog posts but can display some things about me or mine for the curious reader? How picture or video heavy do I want my blogs to be? How much focus do I want them to take up? If I do choose a pictorial interface, how much will I be able to sustain it over a period of time? How invested I am in this?
Who reads blogs anyway these days? Do people read much at all? If they do, are they still interested in text? Is it better to focus on a certain narrow audience that still reads vs. a wider group that needs other modes of communication? Why do people still read anyway and why would people read my blog?
Perhaps giving this some thought is worthwhile. When I started this blog, people read on computers. Hardly anyone had mobile phones on which they could read. That means even if they were reading on laptops, not desktops, they still devoted some physical and mental space separately to this activity of reading, exclusively, which might have been shared with other tabs, not too many other actual tasks. Now people read on mobile phones while physically also doing so many other things. What does that mean for choosing a theme that can display material in more ways than what the old theme could do?
Who is my reader? What do my readers want? Do they like seeing blog posts one by one or a whole lot together or older posts with newer ones when they see the screen? Do they like to think deeply about things which can be only handled in longer, fewer posts or do they like shallow dives via shorter, more frequent reads? Are they sitting on the train or tending to kids or reading while going to sleep? What is it about this blog that makes it worthwhile to spare a tiny little bit of their busy schedules? What is it that makes our human contact through blogging of any value?
Now that we are almost upon August (how time flies!), it would be nice to know who you are and why you visit and what you like to see!
bottledworder 
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