Maybe it's because I never really planned on defining myself foremost as a conservative blogger in the first place, but I find myself increasingly in tune with discussions among two types of people in New Media: those who do what they do in order to drive uniques and hope beyond hope for a chance to settle in next to the "leg chair" on Red Eye, and those who understand that the national discourse is a whole lot bigger than the most-trafficked of blog sites and use whatever pulpit they can manage to build to focus primarily on perpetuating their message rather than whoring for hits.

Are we looking to inform and educate, or are we just *really* holding out for that almighty link from the Drudge Report? Driving traffic and providing an education go hand-in-hand, for sure, but more often nowadays it seems as though folks are leading with the "traffic" hand and hoping that the education keeps up, rather than having faith that the opposite will hold true.

All that being said, you can find more of my stylings at America's Right. That's A-M-E-R-I-C-A-S R-I-G-H-T dot-com, folks. Tell your friends!

Sarcasm aside, what is our purpose for blogging? Are we trying to educate and inform? Build consensus and community? Or all go after the biggest piece available of the exact same pie everyone else is striving to devour?

We need to promote each other because the other person has something to say, not because we hope doing so will score brownie points with the in crowd. We need to get our message to the people, not each other.

How do we show ourselves to the world? Are we focused? Can people who come by our blogs have a reasonable anticipation of what to expect? Are we offering something more than "me too" or "eff u?" Or worse of all, "look at me – SQUEE?"

Hawkins isn't helping.

Link more.

This is really discouraging to read, especially if the panel was supposed to be about blogging and podcasting in general as opposed to "Hey meet these cool podcasters!!!!!" I've gone to (and participated on) panels about costuming, and in every one, the panelists gave the audience information about the essential tools and skills, using their skills and products as examples of what they can accomplish.

It sounded a little too much like Hawkins just wanted everyone to toe the party line––you don't get traffic b/c you're a bad writer/crazy/whatever, so you should just quit and spare us from your crazy new ideas. I think it's easy for people to get involved in a big media blogging community and forget where they came from and the fact that all of this is built on ideas. It's easy to see how many people visit your site, but it's impossible to see the effect your post has on a visitor, and that's what's really important in the long run.