What is up with all these blogs that think they are some amazing community and feel the need to put up some forum and/or other hard-work-required community hangouts?

I was going through some popular blogs today, and about a quarter had a link to a ‘Forum.’ Odd I thought – I thought the attraction was the writers’ analysis and subsequent conversations. Incidentally, [b]every single[/b] forum was either (1) Sparsely populated or (2) Full of crap. The underlying truth for all of the blog forums was the complete absence of the person who ran the blog.

I never understand why people try to be more than they really are. Focus on who (or what) you are and be done with it. I believe we have had some interesting conversations through this blog. But the reality is that almost every single conversation here was started by me. And there are many other conversations I have taken part in on other blogs.

This isn’t narcissism – it is about reality. I visit Screewerk or Local Onliner because I want to hear what Greg or Peter think. I do care about what their readers think, but at the end of the day I subscribed to read their thoughts.

A blog just ain’t a multi-starter community.