Everybody has one.

An opinion?
An a**hole?
A mother?

A blog.

It seems that everyone and their mother has one. In fact, just this weekend, only a few short days after my own rather inauspicious enlistment into the ranks of the blognoscenti, I encouraged both my mom and my dad to start blogging. (I'm certain they'd be at no loss for interesting posts.) But I've quickly realized that having a blog and doing something worthwhile with it are two entirely different things. Blogging is hard!

I started this blog because I always seem to have, in the words of our CEO in an email just this week, "an opinion about EVERYTHING" (caps hers). I think it was a compliment. Yet faced with the 'blank page' as it were and a bit of time this evening I'm finding it difficult to get traction on any of the pieces I want to write.

I found some small solace in Simon 'The Media Guy' Dumenco's op-ed piece from the April 16 issue of Advertising Age. In it he suggests that much of Web 2.0 is driven and supported by quantity (often vapid) – rather than quality. Or, in his words:

"Everybody is pretending they're pushing the envelope -- but, in fact, they're mostly shuffling envelopes. And if you looked inside of 'em, chances are you'd find most to be rather empty."

Maybe it's not a particularly revolutionary revelation, but I'm not inclined to disagree.

Or, put another way:

"71 million blogs... some of them have to be good."

This from a quote, attributed only to 'Mark' found at the top of the blog index of record Technorati.com.

So, since I have no interest in handing the few readers I may have (Hi, mom!) one more 'empty envelope' I'm going to get a handle on a story by the end of the week and try to craft something with a bit more substance.

In the meantime, check back tomorrow for this week's SUEB(AED). And though my weekly ‘media consumed’ list it may not push the envelope – I should at least be able to stuff it.

WTF?