Depending on forum content, the same thing you mention of blogs can happen here. In general, the longer the article, the better it probably is as a blog. You may even come to the forum and post a quick synopsis of your blog and see if that will get more people reading and commenting.
Ultimately, it is the subject matter and the quality of the blog that will generate the most interest. Though, people actually have to follow you to know when you post new stuff.
Blogs develop followings and, I feel, are author-centric. Forums topic are mostly accessed by random people and are topic-centric. Forums tend to be, for the most part, superficial in both content and comments and depend upon some communal development, often non sequitur and superfluous and out of the OP's control. Blogs, however, are mostly planned and self-contained with the comments having little or no influence on any development with the author maintaining more control. Forums are aslo moderated while blogs are only moderated in extreme cases.
So, it comes down to your purpose. If your purpose is to generate a quantity of responses regardless of quality, then the Forums are the place. If your purpose is to present or explore a subject simply for anyone who might be interested, while maintaining control over the project, then blogs are definitely the place.
I completely agree with you @batgirl. Forums have superficial content and are unfocused, while blogs give more control and have an author centric emphasis. In the long run, blogs definitely have more value than forums.
But my aim right now, in the beginning of my journey, is to get people to read. Blogs with their author-centric viewpoint are only useful when people follow your blog, as mentioned by @Martin_Stahl. I believe that the forum seems to reach a much wider number of people and they are much more active in leaving comments or feedback. For instance, this forum post is 2 days old and already has a 100 views and 4 comments. My first blog post published one week ago has just 152 views (10 of which are my own 
) and 0 comments.
After I develop a good following, I can take the liberty to craft out great pieces of content and post it for readers to flock and read it. Whereas, my focus now is on creating what is called in business an MVP or Minimum Viable Product. That is, an article which has just enough value/content to gain readers and gather information on community interest. Such an article is not a masterpiece, but it can be created in much lesser time than one. Getting 100 views on 15 hastily crafted articles in a month is more important at the beginning stage than getting 500 views (in case of miracle) on 2 carefully crafted articles a month. Therefore, my focus is on quantity, not quality.
But I still have qualms on the same issues you raised, such as the forum being a medium for superficial content, and also about how to transition from forum to blog once I am establish.
I think that @Martin_Stahl has a good idea in posting a little teaser to lead people into my blog, although that might seem a little clickbaity and form a negative first impression on some readers. I will continue posting in my blog for some time, and in case the forum idea works best I'll post it here.
Or another thing I can do is post the same article both as a blog post and as a forum post. This way, I can get reads on my forum post and lead people to follow my blog. Is this idea viable? Is it within the moral grounds of the community? I await your insight community!
Bharadwaj-S, I stated blogging here in June 2007 and created two or more indepth articles a week for over 6 years - until October 2013 when I gave it up due to its growing competitive nature and transitioned to writing articles. During that time, I never concerned myself, other that to take note of it, with how many hits or readers I had and only strived to write something of the highest quaility I am capable on topics I hoped would interest some people. You can look back and see I generally had over 2000 views and often 10,000 or more views. So the readership does mount over time.
I think, in the absense of being titled and/or of being a published author, there are a few things that will attract viewers. One, as mentioned, would be to write about things that hopefully interest people and second, to always put in the time it takes to create something with quality. But there is one thing that really helps. I've been here since this place started and watched the blogging area grow and change. One particular thing to be concerned with is Top Blogger status. If you want to have readers, you must achieve this status. What it does for you is to help advertise your blog. There are 3 rotation spots on the top of the Blog listing page where Top Bloggers latest entried are featured. While the non-Top-Blogger listing drop down with each new listing, eventually leaving the top page (sometimes very quickly), Top Blogger entries stay on top (in a rotating fashion) for days, even longer. Additionally, peoples' eyes are drawn to the top-three section and they tend to look at those blogs.
How do you become a Top Blogger? You must first build a body of quality entries, a portfolio so to speak. Then, when you feel comfortable that what you've written is sufficient, submit a ticket with Top Blogger in the headline and request to have that status. The ticket will be forwarded to the proper adminstrator.
V3 seems to handle this differently. I'll try to get an understanding of what the plans are in that version.
Transitioning from the forums to blogs doesn't seem to me to be feasible. Posting frequently in the forums, however, may gain you some name-recognition which can't hurt, unless it's negative of course. But the forums and blogs are distinct entities. Advertising your blog in the forums is possible, if limited. There are rules against advertising in the forums but they seem somewhat flexible.
@batgirl, I have 3 Questions:
1. How many blog posts do I need in order to be sufficient enough to apply for Top Blogger Status? I know there is no exact figure but it is in the ballpark of about how many posts and how many readers?
2. What are the rules against advertising in a forum? What if, as I had mentioned, I post the same article in the blog and forum to reap the benfits of both?
3. Where do you write articles since October 2013? I want to read them and get a feel of how the old time bloggers write.
Thank you!
Bharadwaj-S,
1. That's up to you I guess, since it will be your portfolio...just whatever you think is convincing. I never had to apply since Top Blogger came about while I was an active blogger and I received it automatically so it wasn't something I was involved in. Robert_New_Alekhine recently became a Top Blogger. It might be beneficial to ask him for his experience.
2. I only know that even titled players are prevented from over-advertising in the forums. My take is that if you advertise randomly - in threads where it doesn't belong - it's probably considered spam. You could probably create a thread expressly about your content and each time you make a blog entry, post a teaser and a link to it in that thread. Of course, there's nothing to prevent trolls from ruining your thread (the downfall of anything in the forums). There's absolutely nothing wrong with posting an article in the forums. But if you do, then why would anyone go to your blog to read it again? Comments in your blog are generally more valuable than comments in the forum - I think because it's probable that the percentage of serious people is higher among those seeking out blog articles. I find that when I put an article in the forums, I end up with a lot of picture spamming and irrelevant garbage clogging the thread and the OP gets lost - people see the last page first and often, maybe usually, never go back to read the OP.
3. Here is a list of my articles (which I had coincidentally just published as an article in itself in Wednesday):
https://www.chess.com/article/view/links-to-the-past-ii
BTW:
1) Articles is a very focused area of which 99.99% of the contributors are paid and most of those are titled players.
2) I was looking at Blogs in both v2 and v3. Unless something changes, the only bloggers listed in v3 are titled players, staff and top bloggers. I don't see any other blogs listed. So, to me, that makes it urgent for anyone wanting to blog on chess.com once v3 is fully released to attain top blogger status now. (and there are requirements for top bloggers, both in content and format).
On v3 blogs it does look like those interested in seeing anything other than titled members and Top Bloggers will have to go to Blogs > All Blogs
I see that now.
So only Top Blogs will be visible by default and you will have to make an effort to see others.
Interesting.
Thanks, Martin_Stahl.
Bharadwaj-S,
1. That's up to you I guess, since it will be your portfolio...just whatever you think is convincing. I never had to apply since Top Blogger came about while I was an active blogger and I received it automatically so it wasn't something I was involved in. Robert_New_Alekhine recently became a Top Blogger. It might be beneficial to ask him for his experience.
2. I only know that even titled players are prevented from over-advertising in the forums. My take is that if you advertise randomly - in threads where it doesn't belong - it's probably considered spam. You could probably create a thread expressly about your content and each time you make a blog entry, post a teaser and a link to it in that thread. Of course, there's nothing to prevent trolls from ruining your thread (the downfall of anything in the forums). There's absolutely nothing wrong with posting an article in the forums. But if you do, then why would anyone go to your blog to read it again? Comments in your blog are generally more valuable than comments in the forum - I think because it's probable that the percentage of serious people is higher among those seeking out blog articles. I find that when I put an article in the forums, I end up with a lot of picture spamming and irrelevant garbage clogging the thread and the OP gets lost - people see the last page first and often, maybe usually, never go back to read the OP.
3. Here is a list of my articles (which I had coincidentally just published as an article in itself in Wednesday):
https://www.chess.com/article/view/links-to-the-past-ii
BTW:
1) Articles is a very focused area of which 99.99% of the contributors are paid and most of those are titled players.
2) I was looking at Blogs in both v2 and v3. Unless something changes, the only bloggers listed in v3 are titled players, staff and top bloggers. I don't see any other blogs listed. So, to me, that makes it urgent for anyone wanting to blog on chess.com once v3 is fully released to attain top blogger status now. (and there are requirements for top bloggers, both in content and format).
Did someone mention my name?
Well, I started blogging in early 2015, analyzing master games, giving tips, openings, endgames, puzzles, a variety of things. At first I started with few views on my blogs, but eventually they grew to an average of 500 per blog. Seeing that my blogs were becoming quite popular, I messaged staff and asked whether I met the requirements for top blogger. I did, and so...here I am.
Dont blog for the views, blog because you like it and most importantly, correctly analyze games.
I agree.
I recentely started a chess.com blog where I post lessons and games i learn from my chess books (currentely Jacob Aagard, Attacking Manual 1). The number of reads reaches about 50-70 on the first day, and then plateaus off, taking much more time to reach 100 or more. All the posts also have 0 comments.
This is not only for my post. Even top bloggers get only 700-800 reads on their posts, and some have been blogging for all eternity now.
In contrast, Forum posts skyrocket to hundreds, if not thousands of views in the same time period the blog takes to reach a few tens. And players actively engage with the content in forum posts, posting their own comments, insights, games and tips for the OP.
So why do people even post blogs? Except for the cover photo which don't serve a very practical purpose and the sidebar which you can use to write about yourself, blog posts seem to be clearly inferior to Forum posts. Should I start posting my blogs in the forum now? What does the community think of this?
Click here to go to my blog. Read the articles and please intstuct me on whether I should post them in the forum, and if so under which topic. Forum posts seem to have a wider reach across the community than blogs, and my goal is to connect with as many wonderful players as possible.
Thanks a lot for your support! Sorry for the long post, here is a cat playing the Bird's Opening