Blogging Purpose and Rewards

Anyone with me? Sometimes, I don't care whether I receive points for a blog. Sometimes I just want to propose a question and hope to get real time feedback from a variety of folks, such as when I posted: Financial Advisement, ASAP please . I posted at 12:10. By 12:45 I was off and running with some resources I had not had before. I love getting balanced feedback and brainstorming ideas.

Purpose. If I have time, and I am researching an issue I use our Search function and may contact certain bloggers directly for clarification or specific communication. If I am on a serious quest for information I can "take to the bank" I will go through the above steps and also read profiles and maybe a few other blogs by specific people before I contact them. Some people "borrow other people's money", I tend to borrow "other people's knowledge".

Last night I spent hours researching for a blog that I didn't post. Time wasted? Hardly. I learned a lot. I now have countless references almost answering my question, but not quite. I could post them all here and maybe get more points and better feedback. Instead, I would ask that others also use the "Blog Search" feature.

My question is this: In consideration for a Blogger, if a reader rates a blog and/or bookmarks a blog instead of commenting, does it carry as much weight for the blogger of the post? I ask this because sometimes I may actually have no comment, or my comment would replicate other comments, yet I may have found the blog to be informative, timely, well written, entertaining, thought provoking--a definite "5". Okay, there are times you read a blog and can't believe they actually got points for submitting that, a 1 to 3.

Sometimes I would like to rate and go on about my business, but I want to be assured that I have rewarded the blogger. Of course I wouldn't get points for the comment, but again, points are not always the objective. As a blog reader I may sometimes find a blog that merits close reading or will make a great reference across time, that is when I bookmark. Question: a bookmarked blog obviously holds value to me as a reader. Is the blogger rewarded in anyway for bookmarks?

My most recently bookmarked: ActiveRain Community Resources - Updated 04/15/07 undoubtedly a most excellent reference tool and the ideal starting point for any new Rainers. I bookmarked it also because I don't have time to go through all the juicy references right now, but on a rainy day...