I forgot to feed my Tamagotchi blog

Pitiful. Truly pitiful. A sad, limp graphical curve wends its way south, past months of dedication and devotion, to level out at a sorry all time low. And so my blog pageviews graph highlights the reality of neglect.

As a naive newbie to the blogworld, I have swotted, researched, followed and posted, nurturing my blog with care and devotion, encouraging my little blog to step out into the online world with a voice and a story. Proudly I watched her grow, make new friends from all over the world and inspire me to write. And then I had to let her fend for herself for a month. Just one little month, what harm could that do...?

Let's side-step for a minute, as to answer that (well, understand the why) it's worth remembering how and why we are here. Blogs are a voice, not always loud, but certainly not quiet. In our social-media-means-of-communications, blogs have been an obvious sub-evolution of all the many, varied things we have to say and share. In fact, over 250 million blogs now have something to share, with a new blog apparently born every second of every minute of every hour of every day in to the blogosphere. That's an awful lot of voices out there. So who should I listen to?

Well, if I'm not interested in what you're talking about, I won't listen. If you're not interesting, I won't listen. If you lie, I won't listen. If you insult me, I won't listen. In fact, there are many reasons I won't listen, but also many reasons that I will listen. BUT, and this is kind of key, if you don't speak, I have nothing to listen to!

So there's the lifeline of our blogs. Our voice. It defines our blog, gives it a heart and soul and the energy to explore and earn, and legs to run, grow and climb. So a month off, a month of near silence, my blog had no fuel and no voice for its friends (followers) to listen to, so of course they stopped listening.

I once owned a Tamagotchi pet, a little digital dog who lived in my backpack as I youthfully traveled the world. Everyday, more than once a day, I got my little dog out, tickled its tummy and fed it a biscuit. Long (death-defying) bus journeys and tedious waits at airports meant more love and attention for my little pet. Then one day, somewhere off the coast of Sumatra, I forgot about my faithful Tamagotchi, who lay at the bottom of my backpack unfed and untickled. My digital dog dwindled to a shadow of its former self. I lost interest.

My blog may not be a toy, but it needs to be cared for as it's my voice. And if people want to listen, I have to give them something to listen to.

A month of silence? Time to clear my throat, wake the digital dog and find my voice again.