What you don't know you're missing

I have been thinking lately about how my bloglines page has become my dominant portal of information. For people who are still uninformed or completely naive about the wonders of the blogosphere, I came up with my three solid reasons to jump on the blog bandwagon and join in the community fun. Aside from the obvious reasons of being in-the-know about things that interest you and networking with other bloggers, here is what you're missing...

1. Free Stuff (seriously) - Getting my daily dose of good indie music I've never heard is one of the highlights of my day. At HearYa, they know good music and they want you to know it too. I can usually look forward to a free MP3 (or three or four) of songs by an artist who is trying to get stuff heard, and I can go buy more if I really like it. I can't say that I've been disappointed yet. I also signed up for my free subscription to Nylon Magazine (at least a $25 value), an offer being advertised only to readers of the Urban Outfitters blog. I know it sounds like I'm an advertisement, but why not take advantage of stuff people are giving away?

2. Sales You Wouldn't Have Heard About - If you're one of the millions of people who do most of their shopping on the Web and you always wish you had those discount codes that go in the boxes at check-out, start subscribing to some feeds. I've found more codes and sales from subscribing to SheFinds, Shopperism and Savotron (to name a few) than any Saturday newspaper ad insert. It's like signing up for those annoying store e-mail lists, minus the annoyance of a flooded inbox.

3. Better time-wasters - When YouTube gets boring and you've run out of online games to play during slow days at the office, you can count on blogs to save the day. Rolling Stone's blog recently posted the Almost-Impossible Rock & Roll Quiz. Do you know how many songs on The Beatle's Abbey Road album are credited to George Harrison? I didn't think so.