old_expat - 3:40 am on Nov 13, 2009 (gmt 0)

I hated my own blogs. Just didn't get what I wanted from them. Love the OP/ED idea.

IMO, the thing about blogs .. or seems to be .. is that blog owners write for the sake of putting a few paragraphs under a certain date heading. When that happens, it's generally pretty bad to mediocre writing.

I can see blogs for news, events, TV series, etc., but that seems to be a small portion of the blogs on the net.

I like using a 'journal' approach for first-person narrative.

The thing about the op/ed, if used properly, makes use of a subject that is already generating interest. I think the real key is in making your spin or position on a subject different enough so that plagiarism doesn't even come to mind.

We have gone the route of converting what would have been initial blog posts into new 'articles' sections on several websites and it has worked out much better for the sites in every respect in each case.

Converting blog posts to new articles is exactly what I did on the 2 sites where I started blogs. Now I don't feel compelled to write for the sake of writing.