Today, I realised how much I was reading online in my subscribed feeds in Newsgator. As of now, I have over a hundred and fifty feeds (that’s not a lot compared to many other bloggers, by the way) subscribed in Newsgator, and everyday, I would log in and read the updates from these blogs.

Not every blog that I’m subscribed to updates everyday, but some do have more than one post a day, so approximately, there would be at least (at a bare minimum) 50 posts to read. I spend a lot of my time reading, in fact. But not all posts are interesting, not all post relate to me. Some of them talk about Second Life, some about AJAX, but they are all related to blogging and online marketing.

The thing is, blogging is really not a “log in and publish my thoughts for today” task. I’m not a born writer, and I’m not a born deep thinker too. I just spend a lot of time blogging.

Today over at ProBlogger, guest writer Tony Hung shares 5 prerequisites for blogging success, and I’d like to quote his first:

1. Putting in the Time and Commitment.

One of the things that I didn’t fully appreciate is what a time commitment blogging is. I’m not including all the time it takes to literally set up a WordPress installation, or taking the time to tweak your theme just right, or even answering the buckets of email you may (or may not) have. What I am talking about is the time it takes to actually write.

…

it might require one extra hour of your life to produce that single post alone. Are you going to take that hour away from television time? Time with your family? Time to sleep?

Blogging is about reading a lot, about thinking a lot, about drawing conclusions with the materials you read, about coming up with credible and constructive arguments… then penning those experiences down on paper in your blog post box, in a way that appeals to your audience.

Its not easy. I think it takes up more brain processing power than Mahjong :mrgreen:.

But I realise I have learnt so much from the blogosphere.

When I was doing my projects back in school, I don’t think I read so much or thought so much everyday! Even if I did, much of them material are from old books, old ideas, and journal papers that were published in the 1990s. Basically, boring stuff

Blogs are going to be a new form of learning! It is the long tail form of learning! Today, while Philip Kotler’s principles of marketing still stand very firmly in the offline business world as the basic foundations of many other principles, what people are really looking for are very specific niches in marketing – like “How to market real estate in Australia”, or “Marketing to baby boomer executives”, as far as such niches are concerned, I think the best and most updated tips are found online, in blogs.

The long tail book gives many reasons why – but I think the main reason is that not everybody has the opportunity to publish a paper, or a book, but everyone can blog. We should not let the traditional media agencies “pre-filter” our information sources for us if we really want to learn about an area of interest.

I hope academic institutions start to realise how much value there is in blogging. Perhaps, they could consider using blogs as the medium for submission of research, rather than pages of formally written arguments. Besides, a movement like that would save a lot of paper! We need to start teaching the old professors to use feed readers.

So much for hopes – it will probably take time. As both Shi and John has mentioned in the comments in my previous post, blogging has earned a reputation as a “youngster thingy”, and it is tough to change perceptions. I say this with particular emphasis in Singapore, where the more popular blogs are more tabloid and gossip based.

I’m really so looking forward to the day things like this will happen. I think it is bound to happen; its just a matter of time, but I hope that it will be sooner.

I want to appeal to friends (especially those in Singapore) reading this. Please help to spread the word about learning online and learning through blogging, let’s make it happen within the next 2 years!