Actually, I think I do know what I will do leading up to the five-year mark.

Now, this only may be interesting to ME, I don't know.

But I'm going to talk a little about how I think blogging has changed in the past five years, and craft in general, and how my attitudes towards blogging and craft have changed.

First up: changes in blogging.

I started this little blog back in 2002. (Obvy, or else it wouldn't be nearly five years old!). There were far fewer knitting blogs then. I was inspired to start by reading some of the early knitblogs - Bonne Marie's, and dangerous chunky (which is now long-gone) and glitterkitty (also long-gone). I think Bagatelle was one of the early ones too - maybe under a different name? (Theresa, if you're reading this, let me know). And there was Ivete, who has moved from host to host, but is still there. Not Martha was out there too - not really a knitting blog, but she talked about craft and making stuff. And I also used to read #!/usr/bin/girl (which I haven't looked at in AGES, but it's reassuring to see it's still there.)

Blogs were still kind-of new (at least to those of us outside the computing or tech business), and it was sort of exciting. (Also, in those days, there was no stigma to using Blogger. Yeah, I know, some people now think you're an idiot if you use blogger, and guess what? I am, at least programming-wise, an idiot. I can't be good at everything. So I accept Blogger's limitations because (a) I do not have to pay for my own bandwidth or software and (b) I don't have to deal with the programming/installing issues.)

But anyway. In those days, it was newer, there weren't 18 bazillion knitting blogs. It seemed smaller, in a way. (Lots of people linked to me. People who don't link to me any more because I'm not important enough or not interesting enough or they found other bloggers whose views were more in line with their own. Or whatever. Maybe it's because I'm still on Blogger and I don't have fancy spangly software that auto-emails everyone when I update or anything.) But anyway. The world seemed smaller then.

And it was newer, and more exciting, in a way. And you didn't feel like you were going to get lost in the shuffle. I think now a lot of knit blogs - a lot of GOOD knit blogs - do kind of get lost in the shuffle because their authors aren't outrageous or they're not linked to by the A-list bloggers and all.

(And the fact that there IS an A-list of bloggers: that's another difference from the early days. It was more, you might say, democratic. Or something.)

I didn't have a digi camera in those days, nor did I have comments. Once in a while someone would e-mail me (I had a link up on the blog just as I do now), and that was a big day.

(It's still a big day when someone comments. I've kind of made my peace with the fact that I will never be Crazy Aunt Purl-level with the commenters, but I cherish every comment I get).

There were SOME memes, not to the degree they exist today. There was something called the Friday Five, where five questions were posted and you answered them on your blog.

There were no organized swaps or Secret Pals or any of that stuff. I don't take part in the Secret Pal things for two simple reasons: first, I don't live near any "good stuff" shopping, so I'd have to mail-order all my Secret Pal gifts, and that seemed like another complicating step. And second (and this says something not very nice and rather pessimistic about my nature) but I'd assume I'd be the one person who gets the flaky or dishonest Secret Pal who never sends their gifts...

I posted a lot shorter posts in those days. And I posted more links. I think I tend not to post links so much any more because I tend to feel like "everyone already has seen that." One of the things about blogging now is that you're part of a big giant crowd and you're much less likely to be the first with ANYTHING. You're less of an individual, less special.

Also - there were a lot fewer online shops and especially far fewer online-shop-blogs. I read some of the online-shop-blogs but some of the ones I've seen, I tend to agree with Staceyjoy on (check the second post for 1/20; for some reason her permalinks do not work) (oh, and she was another long-term blogger that I read early on). I think in some respects blogging has become more commerical, with a lot of people trying to make money off of it.

I think anyone who promotes products on their blog and is getting paid (whether in cash or "in kind") should be up-front about it. When I talk about something on here that I really, really like, it's something I've bought and paid for and no manufacturer or advertiser has asked me to talk about it. (Not that they WOULD; I am far too small). But I do think if someone's promoting something for a reason beyond "I bought this and I think it is good quality," it is only fair for them to let us know.

That's another change, I think - the fact that there are people willing to flog for money on their blogs. I admit, about that, I feel like some of the way the early pioneer farmers felt about shopkeepers (that they didn't fully trust someone who paid one price for something, and then turned around and sold it for a higher price, without really using their muscles)

(And, conversely, there's the Ad-free blog movement).

But there are people who are actually trying to make money by the work of their hands.

Some of that I really applaud; I love to see the small craft-bloggers with etsy shops or such who sell the neat things they make. I'm not so sure I'm so in love with the bloggers book-pitches, when the book mainly seems to be based on an "I can write a good book because I have a famous blog*" where the book is mainly a reprint of what was on-line. (I except people like Eunny Jang from that - people who are real and genuine geniuses - who CAN write a good book even though they have a famous blog).

(*And yes, I fully recognize that some of this is perhaps sour grapes on my part - what publishing I do [in scientific journals] comes at the price of a tremendous amount of effort in the writing and revision, and it never really gets "recognized," there's no "best-seller" list for journal articles, and instead of MAKING money on the deal, at times I have to PAY money [or rather, my uni does] in page-charges to the journal. And I have to admit some days I'd love to have a coterie of screaming fans, people For Whom I Can Do No Wrong, instead of colleagues and students who tend to criticize when something's wrong and say nothing when something's right.)

I guess my main conclusion is this: there are a lot more blogs now. In some ways, that's good - a lot of the bloggers I read daily and love and would be very very sad if they closed up shop were in the "second" or "third" wave of knitbloggers. And yet, at the same time, it can be more of a challenge. A challenge in both ways: first, a challenge to find blogs you like, you relate to, you want to read: a lot of the Really Big Really Popular Apparently Really Loved By The In-Crowd blogs are NOT my favorites and I don't read or link to them for that reason. A lot of the blogs I like I've found because their authors commented here. Or I saw them as a link on another blog I like.

It's also a challenge to stand out from the crowd. There have been a lot of times over the past year or two where I've questioned blogging. Where I've wondered if anything I contribute has any value (or if it's "you get what you pay for" since my blog costs you nothing to read...). One motto I've had quoted to me many times (and yet I still cannot quite bring myself to believe) is, "The forest would be very quiet if only the best birds sang." (supposedly an old Russian proverb.) People tell me that A LOT when I'm nattering about how I don't think I'm good enough, or about how I "shouldn't even bother" doing something because there's someone better.

But I don't know. I keep on blogging. Maybe that will be tomorrow's commentary; why I still do it...