One of my rules for my collection of Over 40 Style blogs is that the person has to post relatively frequently.

However recently I have been questioning the value of posting frequently, over waiting until you have something interesting to say.

Posting frequently and writing interesting stories is, I believe, impossible in the long term for one person.

Obviously posting once a year is too infrequent. That blog is dead to me.

On the other hand there is nothing worse than someone wasting my time with a rubbish post because they have decided they must post every day or even every week. It’s the same with OOTD bloggers who post increasingly odd clothing choices in an attempt to wear something to post about.

The people most prone to posting TOO frequently are often the professional bloggers who want to live off their ad revenue, so they need to keep their traffic up. Delivering the level of content required to live off your blog is hard work, and only really an option for the very few.

More than one professional blogger has shut up shop, perhaps believing that everything that could be said, has been said? They have run out of life to milk. Children are now old enough to object to their lives being sold online. The escape from corporate life has turned into its own treadmill.

More than one voice.

Other sites, such as The Mom Edit and Mamamia, have solved the problem of providing frequent, interesting posts by engaging more than one writer. Even if you maintain editorial control, this is still a risky approach as your audience may feel more detached as the quality of voice or style is more variable and less reliable. Alternatively you may attract more people by providing more variety.

For me, part of reading – a book or a blog – is trusting that the writer is not going to waste my time. I trust my favourite bloggers to post a fair number of interesting, current links. I trust my style bloggers to wear the kind of things I like. The internet is a huge place and so I prefer to visit the blogs of people who can curate it and find things I like, and save me time.

I prefer to visit the blogs of people I trust.

However, obviously, having multiple contributors does solve the problem of providing enough content to keep your ad revenue coming in. I understand the reasoning. Just don’t like the result so much.

Sponsored Content.

Another big change in the blogging industry is the way that ad companies operate.

Ad companies are no longer interested in the ads that you see above [the site header] and to the side. They’re interested in the ads that get integrated into posts; ….. Sponsored content.

The Amateur Gourmet.

Many of the most influential style bloggers now post an enormous number of sponsored posts and or receive gifted items. So a lot of their content is of questionable value given they are paid to promote it. For example, even though I love Atlantic Pacific, the amount of designer goods on her site is just insane.

Personal style bloggers sometimes get a bad rap — caricatured as pretty, brainless girls who dress up for their camera-wielding boyfriends and post their results to a WordPress blog. But over the past decade, these independent publishers have become a real force in the fashion industry — not just snapping up front row seats at fashion shows, but landing major campaigns and collaborations with brands, becoming regular guests on TV shows like “Today” and “America’s Next Top Model,” and turning their blogs into multi-million-dollar businesses. Some have become household names.

I know professional bloggers need to make a living, but I don’t want to waste my time looking at ads. You can tell sponsored content. Again, the trust is gone. I’m not looking at someone’s real life. I’m looking at a catalogue.

Can Mommy Bloggers still make a living?

The best example of the changes in the professional blogging community is Dooce. At one time Heather B Armstrong was the most famous of the mommy bloggers. The ad based revenue from her site supported her whole family. However last year she moved away from this business model. She no longer intends to rely on her blog as her sole source of income. Now her posts are infrequent, no longer sponsored, but just as profane as ever.

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So perhaps this is a long winded way of saying that I haven’t been posting very often? And, OK, it is.

Also, I have been questioning why I keep this blog going. I certainly am nowhere near a professional blogger, nor want to be. Recently though I haven’t felt like blogging anything.

What does”wanting to blog” even mean?

Hence the infrequent posts.

After much soul searching – OK 5 minutes in the car on the way home – I decided that I enjoy maintaining this blog because I enjoy the process of capturing things that I like in one place. Online seems as good a place as any. If I didn’t put them in a blog, I would have a massive file of stored images with no record of why I liked the thing in the first place, and random thoughts jotted down on pieces of paper.

I like that this blog is a random record of things I have liked. It has my years of obsession with clothes and shopping. Followed by my increasing interest in life advice and psychology.

Everyone needs a hobby.

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