Ever since I started this blog, I've found my decision to associate it with the Gen. Y blogosphere to be a blessing and a curse.

Being a blogger with a Gen. Y niche has been a fantastic vehicle for making connections with a variety of incredible writers, upwardly mobile young professionals, entrepreneurs and PR gurus. It seems that anyone who uses his or her blog as a networking tool will be able to connect with high quality people regardless of what the blogging niche is. But identifying as a Gen. Y writer and blogging about Gen. Y issues has made it easy to connect with fantastic people who are at similar life/career stages and I've gained a lot from that peer-group connection.

"Your youth is an amazing thing. Blogging will give you a clear advantage when socializing with others and in the job search process," writes Dan Schawbel, a Gen. Y personal branding expert. True. I agree.

Schawbel also points out that social media can help Gen. Yers "accomplish a lot in a very little time." Schawbel is obviously living proof of this. "You sacrifice your time, not your piggy bank. The key is that people are impressed with successful Gen-Yers because they are amazed at their accomplishments at a young age."

Another fair point. But I've always wondered whether you need to brand yourself as a millennial or write about Gen. Y to really get these benefits. It seems unnecessary and perhaps even harmful.

Why harmful? Well, first it seems like the whole concept of Gen. Y is kind of ambiguous. Miriam Kagan of Generation Y Give wrote this excellent post about who is considered a member of Gen. Y. Kagan highlights the vagueness of the term and the lack of overlap between definitions. The problem with this is that if you do blog about Gen. Y--unless you define it for the purposes of your writing, which is part of what adds to the lack of clarity--readers might have different ideas of who you're talking about and what you mean.

Now even if people are somewhat on the same page about this, the media coverage of this generation mostly gives us a bad rap. Lilly Mongeau of Millennial Voices, points out that many descriptions of Gen. Y are negative. And there certainly isn't a shortage of authors and writers who are willing to criticize Gen. Y's shortcomings.

If you immerse yourself in the Gen. Y blogosphere, you might be tempted to agree with these criticisms of millennials. I'm not just talking about bad writing and mediocre ideas, although some have pointed out that there's a lot of that on Gen. Y blogs. The fact is, you'll find trash anywhere you look on the blogosphere. But there are many articulate and smart Gen. Y bloggers writing about work and corporate life and how it all needs to change. There's a lot to be said for the contributions generations can make, but maybe some of this talk comes off sounding just a little naive. Maybe the best way to really change things is to work the system and only talk about shaking things up after you know your way around enough to know what that might take.

Aside from all this, there's just not all too much to say about Gen. Y. At least not in a really meaningful way. I think it's part of why Twenty Set, one of my favorite blogs, is changing its focus. Real generational analysis and trends are fascinating, but so often bloggers use Gen. Y terms as a synonym for people who are twenty-something or post-college. It's not often used to discuss large-scale patterns. In all fairness, substantive generational analysis takes time and it doesn't really lend itself to updating a blog with the frequency it takes to build an audience and increase traffic.

For the most part, the most successful Gen. Y bloggers--those who have used blogs to market themselves and further their career paths--seem to be blogging about a topic and happen to be Gen. Y. Schawbel is a notable exception because Gen. Y is certainly part of his branding.

So I continue to wonder, is this a valuable niche? Do the negatives outweigh the benefits? Maybe every blogging niche is created equal, it's just the bloggers who aren't.