It is Friday! And not a day too soon, either. Being brain-fried and emotionally drained, I wanted to do a light post to fill the space today.
A while back I wrote about the “next blog” button at the top of the page. I am still mystified by it, wondering what determines which blogs will come up when you click the button. I wondered if it might be those with the most hits. Nope. I saw one the other day that was brand new, containing a single post. Overall quality does not seem to be a factor, either. I have found a few of my “regular reads” while randomly searching the “next blog” button. One of those, in fact, is perhaps one of the best blogs on the web. In spite of that, the magic button has only produced it once. Of course, what upsets me most is that MINE has never appeared. Yep, that’s what it all boils down to!
When I first started playing with the little button months ago, it was fun to see an occasional blog in another language and try to figure out what it was all about. Of late, however, the foreign language blogs appear to be overtaking those in English. A few days ago, in fact, I tried an experiment. I decided to click “next blog” twenty-five times. Eighteen (18) of the twenty-five were in foreign languages. So it begs the question: Are roughly 75% of the blogs hosted here really non-English, or does the mystery button merely favor them over — well, over MINE? I detect a conspiracy. And I must get to the bottom of it!
I warned at the outset that this post would be fairly meaningless. I have no qualms whatsoever with people blogging in whatever language they happen to know. I only wish I could read them. Maybe some of those folks are seeing this blog and wondering what I have to share with the world. (It could happen.) For the time being, I take solace in thinking I may be in an “elite” twenty-five percent of writers doing it in English. So there you have it: “Michael Young — blogging in English since 2007.”
Filed under: Blogging
