I
imagine that most people have kept a diary at one time or another. We
all have urges to write our thoughts or feelings down, perhaps to look
at them outside of our heads, perhaps to save them, like photographs,
capturing brief moments in time.
A
photograph preserves an image; a diary saves ideas, descriptions of
events and our reactions. Added to the appeal of keeping a diary is
the latest Internet fashion for keeping blogs. ‘Blog’ is short for
Weblog, and a Weblog is a special kind of public diary.
What
makes a blog special? Anyone with access to the World Wide Web with
the address of your blog can read what you've written in your online
diary.
Interestingly,
blogging has become technology's answer to controlled media
journalism. Anyone can start a Weblog. If you've got a cause to push
or a belief to share, you can do it very simply with your own personal
blog.
Weblogs
are updated daily or weekly with the information or feelings or events
the writer has to share. Ideas and opinions don't have to be vetted
and approved by editors or publishers. You're free to publish anything
you want; and you can do it instantly, whenever the urge strikes.
Why
should you bother? Is it just a matter of vanity to publish your
personal opinions or narratives? Possibly, but more often we believe
that we haven't got the means to let others know what we think is
important.
Another
motive for keeping blogs has been the desire to get exposed to others
who might appreciate and understand our ways of thinking. By posting
periodically--daily or weekly--others can get to know us over a period
of time through a series of events or commentaries.
According
to Blogger.Com the
largest provider of free space for bloggers, a blog is a Web page made
up of usually short, frequently updated posts arranged
chronologically—like a ‘what's new’ page or a journal.
The
content and purposes of blogs vary greatly—from links and commentary
about other web sites, to news about a company/person/idea, to
diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction.
Postings to a Weblog are like instant messages to the Web. Some blogs
are lone-wolf Web sites that report, comment and dissect the day's
news as the author sees fit on the author's timetable.
Many
blogs are personal ‘what's on my mind’ type musings. Others are
collaborative efforts based on specific topics or areas of mutual
interest. Some blogs are for play, some for work, some combine both.
There
are war-bloggers and peace-bloggers, Commie bloggers and Nazi bloggers,
Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, atheist and pagan bloggers. Eric Alterman of
the leftwing Nation nastily denounced blogs and then started one.
Even
major newspapers have Weblogs. The Guardian says that its "weblog
is our variation on the theme - it's a diary of the best online news,
features and analysis."
Blogs
are also excellent team/department/company/ family communication
tools. They help small groups communicate in a way that’s simpler
and easier to follow than email or discussion forums. A private blog
on an intranet allows team members to post related links, files,
quotes, or commentary. On a family blog, relatives can share personal
news.
A
blog can help keep everyone in the loop, promote cohesiveness and
group culture, and provide an informal "voice" of a project,
a cause or department to outsiders. Just as Weblogs can have positive
uses, they also have some negatives.
In
an article entitled "A Blog's Life," Daniel Roth complained,
"Nothing destroys productivity like blogs, the frequently updated
online diaries that have exploded in the past year. Blogs, short for
Web logs, run from the personal (dating life in St. Louis) to the
political (views on Arafat) to the arcane (diseased bees in Virginia
Beach).
"The
company behind the trend is Pyra, a minuscule operation in San
Francisco that runs Blogger.com, the most popular tool for hosting and
posting blogs, with almost 600,000 registered users."
One
can get carried away for hours reading Weblogs. You might ask, why
bother to read them? Have you really learned anything useful after
surfing through dozens of Weblog entries? That depends.
If
your blog-surfing amounts to no more than a distraction from work or
study, or if it cuts into the quality time spent with loved-ones, it
might be a good idea not to get involved in this addictive reading.
On
the other hand, it's possible to discover fascinating people or
interesting styles of self-expression through others' Weblogs. Many
Weblogs, with a special focus can be sources of valuable information
on specific topics.
The
2004 Weblog
Awards, in 35 categories, should certainly be visited by
anyone thinking about joining the blog community. Not all of them have
the most distinguishing and interesting content; but they all have
features that make them worthy of an award.
One
site called DFW Blogs is a
portal for over 100 blogs in the Dallas/Fort Worth area alone. One can
imagine JR ("Dallas") reading Sue Ellen's blogs to find out
what she'd been up to behind his back.
James
Wolcott, in an article called "Blog Nation" in Business
2.0 (May 2002) asked, "Are weblogs the blinking neurons of an
emerging, chatterbox super brain? Or are these proliferating online
diaries merely podiums for bush-league blowhards? Truth be told,
they're a bit of both--and that's precisely what makes them so damn
addictive."
One
problem with some of the blogs rests with the small fonts chosen by
bloggers trying to squeeze as much as possible into their Web spaces.
They're difficult to read without moving your face next to the screen,
and they can cause eyestrain.
For
a readable article, Rebecca Blood's "Weblogs:
a history and perspective" is one of the best essays on the
background of blogs available. Another excellent history of blogs by
Rebecca Mead appeared in The
New Yorker magazine.
Dave
Winer not only offers a "History
of Weblogs" on his page, he also runs Scripting News Weblog,
which was one of the earliest and is currently the longest-running
Weblog on the Internet. In addition to Dave's own entries and
links, updated daily, Scripting
News has a substantial number of links to other Weblogs.
Marketers
have recently begun to recognize blogs as having keys to marketing.
Group blogs tend to have a theme and provide insight into community
perspective of a product. This is a good place to examine a product's
reputation, how it is viewed in relation to other products, and how
the product is being used.
For
those who might like to get lost in hundreds of personal diaries,
Yahoo's
Web Logs page is the ideal place to go.
The
Open
Directory Project provides links to sites with special interest
lists. These include area blogs, like the Dallas/Fort Worth group.
There are lists for Chicago and Boston in the US, Singaporean blogs
and Aussie logs for Australia. Obviously the trend is going worldwide.
The
Open Directory also provides lists for interests like Teenage Girls
and "Redhead Blogs," blogs by women and blogs of war. For
those interested in educational technology, Scott Wilson of Cetis
summarizes the information available on related blogs.
A
favorite Weblog of mine is the "Internet Scout Weblog"
produced by "The
Scout Report", which has been published weekly since 1994.
They provide a fast and convenient way to stay informed of valuable
resources on the Internet.
The
Scout Report is one of the Internet's oldest and most respected
publications, compiled by a team of professional librarians and
subject matter experts, from the University of Wisconsin, who select,
research, and annotate each resource.
Incidentally,
if you have things to say and you don't want your identity known, you
can always create an anonymous blog using a pen name or a created
identity. People write blogs with names like "Funny Girl",
"Advocate", Combustible Boy" and "Bigwig".
Darlene
Fichter, President of Northern Lights Internet Solutions, concluded,
"Some people believe Weblogs represent a revolutionary new means
of communication, comparable in some ways to the creation of the World
Wide Web itself. Others call them a new ‘genre’ of incestuous and
vain self-publishing, an electronic vanity press. Still others regard
them as just a plain old list of links with commentary and wonder what
the fuss is all about."
It’s
all about a massive number of Internet users keeping and sharing their
journals and links online.
