I must say I am a little... questioning, to how often bloggers apologize for their sporadic interest in their blogging. Why not just say up front: "I blog when I blog"...?
Maybe I haven't "got the hang" of this thing called Internet, after having consulted successfully and developed several $ million online businesses for over a decade.. Or maybe this typical behavior is just one more example of the detachment from basic etiquette that many people suffer when they try to apply some inept form of online "netiquette".
Maybe they view blogging as having penpals: many who have penpals write only sporadically and then when they decide to take their time to communicate something, they start by more or less stating the obvious: - "I have done other things than write to you."
- "You haven't been a priority".
- "Actually, you have been on the bottom of the bottom of my non-priority list".
Why bother? Is that supposed to come off as sincere, humble and well-bred? It's not. It's arrogant and nonchalant.
Imagine not showing up for work for a couple of months and then dropping in and telling the boss: "I've been on the beach, to the movies, hung out with friends, spent whole days on the couch watching TV and so on. I am sorry I haven't checked in earlier, but I've just been so busy."
No? Not the same thing? Because you don't have the same obligations to readers as you have to your workplace?
My point exactly. Real journalists actually do have obligations to their readers, and they take their newspaper seriously. Imagine a newspaper being published haphazardly with the above "excuses". It would be out of circulation in no time.
Very few people would even conceive of behaving towards or speaking to their employers that way. As a matter of manners and respect. No one in their right mind would routinely stand people up by not showing up for booked meetings or dates and seriously expect that a: "Oh, I was busy that night" will suffice.
No one with realistic expectations of wanting to be taken seriously will want to project an image of being disorganized and condescendingly "absent-minded".
So why project it online to potentially thousands or millions of people? "I want you to be around when I have nothing better to do and to love me for not caring that much about updating you".
Why not simply include in the presentation once and for all that: "Due to other obligations I will regrettably only be able to drop in here sporadically."
There's no crime in being otherwise engaged.
Or why not, like periodicals do, schedule publishing dates in advance and deliver what you promised. There's no law that blogs are supposed to be "Daily News". Schedule once a week or month or less but keep it. People will know when to tune in and it's not like there are no other texts to read or films to watch meanwhile.
Or simply inform that: "I blog when I blog... Feel free to drop in now and then".
But: "I am sorry again for not updating.. I am so busy in my life and you are not...", that's just complacent and inept.
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