I am not cool enough to leave this post without any commentary. This is a question that has plagued me for some time, and I am afraid I only can come up with sophomoric answers.
If my life depended on it, I would probably argue for 2 and 5. In any case, I do not think that bloggers think about this explicitly, much like each of us does not explicitly think of the costs and benefits of every single decision we make. However, our behavior evolves to reflect this sort of thinking.
Any other ideas? And why are talk radio shows and things like SportsCenter able to engage in these strategies?
Any other ideas? And why are talk radio shows and things like SportsCenter able to engage in these strategies?
1. It takes an able writer to craft a cliff-hanger. Most bloggers – myself very much so – are not very good writers.
2. You gotta have a compelling story-line for a cliff-hanger. A continued narrative. Something to thread the posts together.
3. Radio talk shows _will_ be back after that commercial break. And it’s only a few minutes away. A blogger might post today, tomorrow .. when they feel like it.
Perhaps the narrative and the writer matter most. For a year or so an anonymous writer wrote a blog called ‘Down at the Plant’. Ostensibly just a blog about by guy working in a factory it was really a fictional (probably) story of a guy who lived hard, loved hard, lost and gained his love back. Then blew out of town with the girl.
And that was some good blog reading. With cliff hangers.
If you’re writing a blog about economics, you’re probably lucky to have anyone actually read the thing.
Why do people blog? To show other people how clever they are. If you pose a question but do not answer it, then you are not demonstrating how clever you are. And in fact, if you have comments, you are asking to have one of your more clever commenters steal your thunder. Who needs that? Blogging is about me me me; you can ride but you cannot drive.