THERE'S AN AWFUL LOT OF BLOGGING CRAP OUT HERE
For those of us who are egotistical, self-serving, narcissists - or Bloggers - there's nothing like the almost masturbatory pleasure of reading ones work posted for all to see. Safe in our assumption that millions of people the world over are eagerly awaiting our next morsel of wit and wisdom, we continue to spew out seemingly endless amounts of text for no reason other than to massage our own inflated egos.

Yet a more exciting thrill is available if you choose to not only read your own blog, but click on the little button to the top right of the screen that says "NEXT BLOG." Although to many of us there is no need to read anyone else's blog because ours is so good, a brief digression into the souls of others can be very instructive. Not least because there is some god-damn awful rubbish out there that brings a whole new meaning to the concept of "self-absorbed."

Some people are content to simply write the first thing that comes into their head, regardless of whether there is any point to it or not. Some go down the misguided route of trying to appear "creative" by rejecting all artificially imposed boundaries of form and style - in other words, they can't write. Others apparently fall asleep at the keyboard and get no further than a few words, some of which are in the English language.

Then there are some who, flushed with the initial success of posting the immortal words "Welcome to my new Blog, I hope you enjoy all my postings to come," promptly disappear from the blogging universe and fail to post ever again.

And as for those folks who seem to think they are God's gift to prose - spare us all! Here's a not-untypical example from the "Whispers" blog (oh go ahead, click here for the full experience.)

"Screams- screams were closing in from all directions, silence- no where to be found. He wanted to close his ears- wanted to shut his eyes- wanted to embrace what had arrived- wanted to… He wanted to think; think once in his life. He had spent all these years without thinking about anything. It was as if he had lost his ability to think- to wonder."

And also his ability to write. This blog is special in that it allows you to use the words turgid, pretentious, vapid, and torpid all in one sentence. Douglas Adams' fans might be reminded of Vogon poetry, which may turn out to be more palatable.

Of course, some blogs are good. And those that are a typically not actually about someone but about stuff. If you want to rate a blog objectively, one measure you can use is the Ego Index, which you obtain by dividing the number of times the words I, me, mine, and my appear by the total number of words in the blog. For example, in the single sentence I think I ought to talk about other things than myself, there are 11 words, of which three are first-person pronouns. Therefore, the Ego Index for this sentence is 0.27.

What's the betting that there is a inverse correlation between how good a blog is and its ego Index? Now there's a research project waiting to happen!