Jumping into the blogger world can seem like fun at first, but as with anything there are plenty of jerks who will want to criticise you for your views (you know the ones who post their comments anonymously). The big thing to keep in mind is to be honest and open to suggestions. Don’t let these “trolls” (didn’t think there was a huge article on that did you?) keep you from posting about your passion. Personally I’ve always been outspoken (what others might call quick with the mouth, slow with the brain), but I’m always listening to what others think about my views. That is what blogging is all about, learning from others.
The best way you can participate is to write about what moves you (I’m guessing GIS?) and in turn others will better understand your position. Read something on someones blog that is critical of your software? Don’t just write a quick response in their comments but create a post on your blog. They’ll get the message by looking at their referrer logs. I’ve got nothing against comments, but they should only really be used for quick answers/statements. If you want to dissect their post, it is best to be done on your own weblog where you have time to think about what you want to say (and have search engines crawl your posts so users can find it (dead link) when they search).
So go ahead, post about how much you love GIS, programming or even Java. Tell people about how your software makes their lives easier. Give people reasons to talk about your software on the blogosphere and you’ll be surprised about the results. Passion attracts passion (positive and negative) so go ahead and post and have fun.