Time to Consider

I am at a crossroad insofar as my blog is concerned. I use it to convey thoughts, plans, happenings--it is a virtual stream of consciousness that I have enjoyed penning for a few years now. Unfortunately, social media has decided that the content isn't worthy of distribution, or perhaps my readership is such that they want "their cut." I suspect the latter, but that isn't the point of this entry.

Over the past several days, I have considered discontinuing my blog. Since it doesn't seem to be in the best financial interest of the Facebook or Google gods, perhaps it's time I move on to a different form of communication?

I realize this is the second time I've posted about the reverse engine going on with this blog. Understand, I have access to the analytics and can easily see how many page views it is getting, as well as countries it is read in, and upon what devices you are viewing it. No, I have no idea who is using an Android or an iPhone, but it does give me a quantitative number of devices by which the blog is read. It also details the number and type of operating system used to read it. Interesting, huh?

The most important stat of late, though, is the total page views globally. Previous entries have garnered thousands of views--then all of a sudden a hundred or less. I considered the content being produced for my readers, but I have been pretty consistent over the years of being inconsistent regarding topics. What, then, could it be?

Simple deduction tells me that the throttling of my blog (and similar experiences have been logged by many friends attempting to communicate to a broad group of individuals across the web) have coincided with Facebook's sudden financial plunge. Look, I'm a business guy and I understand revenue generation, but to do it on the very backs of those supporting your platform isn't the smartest business plan in the world if you ask me!

So, I am back to my earlier conundrum--do I continue this thing or not? Do you have thoughts on content that you would enjoy reading? I try to keep this relatively light, but would consider much headier topics if demand were high enough to warrant it.

I'm going to give it a few more days and think about it a bit more. The future of this blog is in the various social media outlet's hands. We'll see what they (and you) decide.