Jason Unger

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I get a lot of stuff from PR people — tons of emails, press kits, sometimes even fruit snacks. But blogs?

Apparently, the folks at DisplaySearch think that's the way to go with their marketing.

Instead of sending me a release, they send me their blogs. Like releases. But blogs.

This is weird, right? Does that actually count? I mean, I agreed to get your press releases, but didn't sign up for your RSS feed or email alerts.

Now in reality, their blogs are really just press releases for their studies, written in a "blog style." (This goes back to my whole "everyone has different expectations for a blog" rant.)

But for some reason, it makes me a little annoyed. I'm on the list for press releases, not your blogs. If I wanted to read them, I would have subscribed.

I think this is weird. Don't you?

One of the problems I have when coming up with topics for this blog and for the Online Savings Blog is choosing subjects to speak authoritatively about.

It's not that I can't or that I won't — it's just that I don't get that much enjoyment from it.

When I'm blogging, I'd rather share my experiences and stories living life than try and provide "useful" and informative content. It's a lot more fun to just shoot the breeze and post funny links and insights.

Every day, I read a number of amazing blogs like Copyblogger, Penelope Trunk and Get Rich Slowly, who are there to provide compelling and timely content. This is what I do every day at CE Pro — but it's not what I want to do when I write here.

Bloggers have been getting a bad rap lately, but a lot of that has to do with the different expectations and meanings that term has to people. Engadget might be a blog, but they are much better tech journalists than anyone in the mainstream media. Top it off with a strict policies regarding relationships with who they're covering and they've got a much cleaner rap sheet than many "professional" journalists.

But because anyone can start a blog, "bloggers" all get lumped together — the ones redefining journalism and the ones simply telling you about their day. But does that mean you should only start a blog if you really have something useful and informative to say? Of course not.

When you come to CE Pro, you get the informative content and breaking news. On this site, I get to talk about whatever the hell I want.

So what's the take away from this? You always have something to say — and you can speak authoritatively about it: you. As Gary Vaynerchuk recently laid out, you have to look inside yourself to find happiness.

I don't pretend to bring you compelling content with every blog post on this site — I only post things that I find interesting and want to share. That's our agreement.

Thanks for being a part of it.

Now that I'm back from EHX and the greater Los Angeles area, time to fill you in on what I've been up to.

Namely - video blogging.

Read more »

You're a good blogger. You've got good content. You've started to get some traffic. But you can't get anyone to leave a comment on your blog posts. What are you doing wrong?

Read more »