Confessions of a Blog Lurker

I must admit that I never kept a journal. It's not that I didn't want to keep a journal. I can't tell you how many times I'd go on a beach vacation and buy a pretty journal with a cool cover. I usually made one entry, maybe two. I am not a journal type of person. I never even kept a diary when I was a kid. I think it's because I'm not confident in my writing abilities. I especially don't want something published where everyone can see my thoughts. I guess I'm a shy writer. I majored in mathematics and computer science back when I went to college. Writing was not my forte. Oh, I could write technical documents, but they were pretty dry. Nothing blog worthy.


Now I'm faced with the dreaded task of blogging. I like to read bogs. I read them in envy. "Wow, I love how this person writes!"," Wow, what great ideas..." I don't even usually respond to blogs. I am a blog lurker. I really don't think I am alone. Upon investigation I discovered the Jakob Nielson theory on community participation. He called it the 90-9-1 rule. It states the following:


- 90 percent of users never contribute (the lurkers!)
- 9 percent contribute a little
- 1 percent of users account for almost all the action





I'm hoping that time goes by, I can become more comfortable in the public blog forum. I can definitely see the benefits to keeping one. Hopefully this won't be like my old summer reading journals.... one entry, maybe two.