Why? Because as intimated — if rather circuitously — in this article, you can only provide a venue. You can't fill all of the seats. The decision to stay is down to the people visiting. If that transforms into a community, then you're fortunate.

I've read of many discussions on this topic and the “key” to success is very much a contextual one, tied in some way to the nature of the blog and its audience to which it serves.

As I said, I don't sell. I write…

The only major difference that I see in what you've written vs. what I did was your emphasis on treating the audience as a privilege.

And you're right about that!

If I start there, it makes me work harder to keep giving freely — information, or service, or time, or attention, or a laugh, or whatever I can offer on any given day. To me, this philosophy is the cornerstone of creating good content and buiding an audience.

Here's what I think:

I deserve an audience because I have a message to share. I deserve an audience because I am saying something.

Whether people take action, are influenced, or make changes based on my message is irrelevant.

Every person in this world deserves to be heard, even if the audience is of one.

1. Although I used Twitter as an example in this post, it's just one example. People cluster together in lots of places.

2. If you look at my Twitter stream you'll certainly see a mixed bag of entries, so I might fall into that bipolar terminology that you mention. And that's fine with me: my Twitter microblog has fewer rules around it than Broadcasting Brain. At the same time, however, I'm still trying to inform or at least entertain.