Professional Blogging Vs Amateur Drivel

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I've moved all of my blogging activity to The Lucid Blog.
You can visit my new home at:
www.thelucidblog.com

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I'm so tired of reading articles about blogging and RSS and zzzzz.

Maybe it's just some kind of end-of-year malaise that's reducing my ability to care about another writer recycling the how-to's and why-do's of web logs.

Or maybe they're just not writing the kind of things I really need to know. The things that no-one really knows.

Like how do people view your blog? Is it seen as a professional part of your online business, or is it just a vain attempt to fit in with the internet-chic? The online equivalent of "dress-down Friday's"

Are these things really worth the effort or are they, dare I say it, a fad?

Alright, I'll admit it. I've heard that question before.

I guess I really just want to know how The Nettle Blog should be presented.

Unless a blog really is a straight weblog, cataloguing the newest pages in date order, the general view is that they should contain views, opinions and a diary-like candour in their expression.

But is this really professional? Doesn't this make them seem all the more hobbyist and, yes there's that word again, faddish.

If The Nettle Blog is about home business online, then do you really want to read about how pretty my garden looks, how much my head aches from the after effects of a head cold or about the latest viral email attachment I found that lets you throw xmas puddings at an effigy of George Bush's head superimposed onto an animated moose.

That last thing doesn't really exist by the way.

Or at least, if it does, no-one's told me about it yet.

I do feel a twinge of guilt every time I post something here that isn't related to online marketing. As if I'm being self-indulgent or amateurish.

So that's my mental battle at the moment. Does The Nettle Blog become a bastion of professional links and intelligent critique? Or does it include some stream-of-consciousness ramblings about anything I feel like writing about.

I'll give it some more thought. In the meantime, feel free to post your comments on the matter and you might even sway me one way or the other.