I think that's well enough, but I also think that wrapped up somewhere in that blog post is the assumption—which is now terribly widespread but still strange to

I think that's well enough, but I also think that wrapped up somewhere in that blog post is the assumption—which is now terribly widespread but still strange to me—that the decision to blog comes before the decision on what to blog about. It seems like nearly all the writing about blogging (like this article), and nearly all the blogs themselves, are the product of either an individual or a company saying, 'I/we should definitely have a blog.' Only then is the next step occupied by a discussion about what to put in it. Call me simplistic but I feel like there was indeed a time when a much greater proportion of blogs were the direct result of someone having something to say. When a blog is the means by which somebody expresses themselves, or communicates with others, it tends to be good. But I think that a great deal of blogging culture, by now, tends to consist of bloggers who started websites to fulfill some business plan, and who need to rustle up things to say. Even I have a new blog that I started (you can see it at zdsmith.com, but:) that has absolutely no content in it. Because I haven't had anything to say yet. Frankly, it's not therefore apparent that I need it at all. Part of this is because my writing has migrated to more socially direct venues, like HN, or twitter, or message boards. But nevertheless one has the sense that if one has a popular blog, that there's much more prestige and exposure and professional value in it. So you start a blog, and then you have to find a quote to begin a discussion about what to blog about. If I had a lot to say (and it was most suited to the rather these-days relatively long form of the blog), wouldn't guidelines like that be kind of superfluous?