I am not a Pro Blogger, I am a Professional Blog Reader.

Three very good reasons I'm not a Pro Blogger...

1. If I had to write I would starve!
2. My current job, my livelihood, doesn't depend on blogging.
3. I am not engaged in a business that I need to promote or represent via a blog.

I am a Professional Blog reader ( a professional who reads blogs )

Yes, I know that was just a matter of a little linguistic slight of hand (mouth?) but after the smoke clears and the mirrors are removed the import remains: I, as a professional, read blogs. As a Systems Administrator it is essential that I maintain an up-to-the-minutes perspective on the world of technology.

I was the guy at my office that subscribed to every trade journal (slick) that I could find a blow-in card for. They were killing millions of trees just for me. It was normal for me to receive 1 or 2 slicks per business work day. That works out to ~28 trade slicks per month. There was paper-based information overload, not to mention waste basket/recycle box overload.

Then it was e-mailed technical briefing/product/service newsletters. Zettabytes and yattabytes of electrons gave up their little negative charges, figuratively speaking, to over-stuff my e-mail in-box. Now I was receiving weekly newsletters from roughly the same number of sources (e.g. 28 sources times 4 weeks equals 112 newsletters.) I spent more time deleting than I did reading.

Blogs are the answer to information overload. First is the timeliness of the available information. Professional and business blogs, as well as personal blogs, appear to be updated in near-real time. Second it the usual brevity of the information offered. The medium has shaped the message. Blog postings are short, sweet and to the point.

Google Reader Trends indicates...From your 101 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 3,397 items. More correctly I have scanned nearly 34 hundred items. Subscribing to blog feeds has allowed me to manage and process information in a much more efficient manner. I am able to spend less time and have evergreen information on the technology world around me.

...that is why I am a professional blog reader.