I've been blogging for nearly six years and still enjoy it tremendously. Mark Spahn just sent a link to this interesting post, by a blogger I don't know and have never read. I agree with her that, to be successful, a blog has to have a niche. Who cares what some obscure person has to say about this or that? My niche is philosophy. Not all of my posts are philosophical in nature, obviously, but I'm a philosopher by training and profession, so I'm bound to see the world through philosophical eyes. Even if I'm only commenting on a New York Times letter, my training as a philosopher manifests itself. I notice ambiguities. I uncover hidden assumptions, so that they may be evaluated. I reconstruct and evaluate arguments. I classify things. I detect fallacies. Sometimes I make arguments myself, though the fact that I'm a philosopher gives my values no more weight than anyone else's. (Philosophers, as such, have no evaluative—including moral—expertise. We are technicians.)
I used to try to get other bloggers (such as Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin) to link to me, hoping that it would expand my readership. I rarely do this anymore, in large part because it doesn't work. Glenn and Michelle are probably inundated with requests for links. Who can blame them for ignoring these requests? I'm content with 500 readers per day, although I currently have more than that. I've befriended a number of my readers and enjoy discoursing with them through this blog (or via e-mail). It's a form of community. Some communities require physical proximity; the blogospheric community does not. It's an intellectual community: a community of ideas. In order for someone to find my blog worthwhile, he or she doesn't have to be interested in every post, just some of them, perhaps those on a particular topic, such as law, music, animals, cycling, or baseball. In case you're wondering, I have only three blogs: the one you're reading, which began as AnalPhilosopher; Animal Ethics; and KBJ Course Blog (for my students). I have long since deleted The Conservative Philosopher and The Ethics of War.
Thank you for reading my blog.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 