Blogging for an audience?

Ill tell you Im blogging to get my thoughts out, and alot of the time that would be true, but there is also something in there that hope somebody somewhere is reading it. Most of the time I write a post with a person in my mind, it helps me to write clearly, and not rely on connections Ive made in my head but havent expressed. I read blogs that are from both ends of the spectrum and I feel like I live somewhere in the middle. TSK, is often talking about his stats, readership, Google and Technorati rating, whereas Antony at Coming to the the Quiet, seems to actively flee any type of rating. Now both of these guys I have relationship with to a greater and lesser extent, and I dont see anything negative in these approaches to web readership. Both taken to the extreme could be unhelpful, but then it depends who or what your blogging for. Even though I would say the traffic or lack of it doesnt really bother me, I am always interested in blog design, and connection technology, partly because I was involved in a little web design before I even knew blogging existed! I love the new developments in web2.0, ajax, rss etc and was interested to read about minimalism creating a more readable blog. Although I LOVE functional technology such as rss links, clever picture shows etc, side bars can often become overwhelming. Before I knew what a blog was in fact, as Andrew moved up to Orkney and made contact with my friend Miriam, I was told this guy might need to stay in Aberdeen sometimes, and he has a website. SO I checked it out, and it was clear he did indeed have a website. But not really like a website I had seen before. It looked like a page of an encyclopedia! Never having heard of blogging, I struggled to know how to read, and to get my head round of the concepts of bars without lines, organisation through date etc. But still I kept on, and over the years became quite the blog reader, and somewhat bloggEr. So maybe minimalism is the answer, ht:maggi dawn now I understand the concept of blogs and the agreed format I read blog intuitively, but how accesible a technology are blogs?