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I’m pretty sure I’ve used the “get niche quick” phrase before, but I am only human, not an endless cavern of clever blog titles that play on common cliches (see that alliteration, there? My 8th grade English teacher would be so proud).

I’ve been doing some off-topic thinking lately, and examining blogs outside my usual niche of “PR/social media/tech/new media/2.0 this, 3.0 that” whenever I have a chance. I’m going to make this one of only two New Year’s Resolutions I’ll make this year, the other being to leave more comments on others’ blogs. Just so you admire my dedication here, making New Year’s resolutions at all goes against my generally strict “No resolutions, ever!” policy, which is usually on par with Joan Crawford’s feelings about wire hangers (probably due to how crowded my gym becomes for the duration of January each year, a major pet peeve I should rant about on another blog entirely, after I remind myself that after many years of faithful gym-going, I’ve gone about three times in the last six months).

Since getting heavily involved in social media this year, I found that while I enjoy it and derive much in the way of personal and professional enrichment from it, my participation has come at the sacrifice of some of the things I used to enjoy just as much. I used to check in with Perez Hilton and Jezebel for a dose of Hollywood gossip, lately those feeds are among my most neglected. (Not to mention Hollywood gossip in general. I currently have eight–seriously, eight–untouched copies of Us Weekly stacked neatly (if by “neatly” you mean, “in a messy pile”) on my coffee table, next to a remarkably similar pile of untouched TV Guides. It seems that my preferred niche in the blogosphere has become so at the expense of all the other niches I used to enjoy.

Considering I get home from work and almost immediately sit down with my laptop (oh, new discovery at Best Buy tonight for my Geek Gift Guide that I never did finish writing but maybe will someday, like next Christmas: a contraption for your laptop that is rigged up with a fan that cools your thighs! Do you know how hot my thighs get? Do you? Okay this post is going places I did not intend, moving forward…), I feel like I should really be expanding my horizons beyond our little circle. It’s a good niche, a great niche, but…what else is out there?

Three Niches I Plan to Explore (My Social Media New Year’s Resolution):

1)  May as well start off with a cliche, eh? This is a New Year’s resolution and all, and huge amounts of New Years resolutions have to do with weight loss (hence the crazy gym). So: fat blogs. Being a member of the “We’re here, we’re sphere, get used to it!” camp myself, I’m drawn to some of the issues discussed on the blogs I’ve been checking out. I have found Elastic Waist, Big Fat Deal, The F-Word and particularly Kate Harding’s Shapley Prose to be especially engrossing. Kate Harding was at BlogHer this summer, and after growing addicted to her insanely intelligent writing in recent weeks, I really wish I’d been there to meet her in person. I frequently disagree with her–but isn’t the best writing the kind that inspires you to leave comments and engage in friendly debate?

2)  Well it is an election year in 2008, right? Something about a new president? So–political blogs. I went to school in DC, majored in Political Science, and started my career in political campaigns. Yet there is currently only one politics blog in my feed reader, and it’s Wonkette. Not really about politics so much as DC-centric hilarity that only someone who lived there as long as I did can fully appreciate (though as much as I love Gawker, I did like it better when Ana Marie Cox ran it, something about her love for the baby pandas at the zoo and all the accompanying DC panda hysteria). So I’m going to add a couple blogs from both sides, and maybe one in the middle, to my readings.  Just don’t tell either party I’m one of those coveted “undecideds.” I don’t want phone calls.

3) Perhaps still another New Year’s resolution I need to make is to learn to cook for myself. A girl cannot and should not subsist on items from the “prepared foods” aisle at the grocery store and bad takeout. So: food blogs! I can’t handle more than a couple, because the thought of actually using my kitchen for something other than “a place to store all the liquor and Easy Mac” sends me into cold sweats. Obviously I’ll be reading more of Cork & Knife–what other food blogs do you recommend to a newbie?

So, that’s it, I turn it over to you: what web niches do you think might hold your interest, but you’ve been neglecting? Do you too suffer from social media tunnelvision?

And most importantly–what are your social media resolutions?

Filed under: blogging, social media