When I am making my way round JU, usually on a daily basis, I notice the names of the newest bloggers, who have just registered. Sometimes I even click on their names to have a bit of a nosey...because well, I'm nosey. Thinking about it, not many of them bloggers I have noticed, appear to have made a huge impact on JU, and I wonder why? Some may post a few articles, try to get into things a little, and when they recieve no attention they get bored and don't bother again. Now obviously this isn't the case for all of them, otherwise none of us would be here right now. I'm just wondering how easy it actually is to become popular at JU. Now when I say popular, I mean getting people to read your blog, and even better respond and offer opinions on what you have wrote. I do not consider myself to be popular, however I do know that I have people who read my blog on a regular basis, and for that I am grateful.

I think one of the key factors to becoming popular, is simply to stick with it. You can't just give in. I guess alot of whether you stick it out depends on why you choose to blog in the first place. If you do it for attention, and expect instant attention at once, you will struggle. Nothing is that easy. If you do it because you enjoy to write, and you wouldn't mind giving other people the opportunity to read your thoughts, and read the the thoughts of others, you might just be on to a winner. I know that when I started here at JU I was very lucky. The people were kind and friendly, and welcomed me in quite easily. Even though the stuff I wrote wasn't up to a high standard, people still took time to read what I had to say. I am not saying that people aren't like that now, I'm saying I'm lucky that people took the time to do that for me.

I don't care how new you are here, or if anyone knows you or not, if you write an article that is interesting, funny, insightful, or just has quality, you will get noticed no matter what. I know that there are popular bloggers here, and I know that people have their favourites, just like I do. There are people here who I take an interest in, you read what they are doing in their lives, and what their problems are, and before you know it, you start to care. There is nothing wrong with that, we will always be loyal readers to certain bloggers. However, someone new coming in, if they put out a good article, it will get noticed, and I have no doubt about that. It just has to interest people. Now what is interesting to me, may not be interesting to the guy down the street, but variety is the spice of life. Even though I have favourite bloggers I will read no matter what, I still click on article titles that interest me, and look in the forums, and I am sure that many other people do the same. You can never have to much to read in my opinion.

I think another important thing is, you get out what you put in. The more you integrate yourself into the community and get to know people, the more you will get out of it in my opinion. It will give it more of the human touch. That there will be people here you want to interact with, and that you want to let get to know you. It isn't all about just writing on your own blog, though it can be if that's the way you want it. I think I enjoy meeting new people though, and I like getting different perspectives on the things I write. Sometimes I write things, and think I am completely right. Then someone will leave a comment, and give me something to think about, and that is priceless. Everyday is a school day. I think you should always be open to new attitudes and opinions, it can only help you grow as a person.

My last point, and one of the main reasons I don't think some people get attention, and that is simply down to the style they write in. I have clicked on some blogs, and they are just completely unreadable. Whether this is down to poor grammer, no paragraphs, a bad font, or whatever, I just don't bother reading. You can get away with a lot. You don't have to be perfect by a long shot, but you do have to make sense, otherwise people will just not bother, simple as that. I don't know if it's just me, but I also ignore blogs that use 'text talk'. I just can't stand all the abbreviations, and they just don't read right for me. Other people might be able to put up with that, but not me.

So that's it....it still leaves me with the question.....just how easy is it to become popular here?