My experience with WebLogs has been a wealth of information and personal opinion. People coming together to share ideas on particular topics has major benefits for everyone. The world today changes so fast that its hard for any one person to keep up with current events and new technology. There are always new things to be learned. The weblog allows everyone to have a voice and allows everyone to be heard. Spreading the knowledge and thoughts to everyone, bringing to light ideas you may have never even thought of on your own. Personal weblogs also have that power where one persons viewpoint, on life or anything in general, can be totally different then your own. Whats really important is to keep an open mind and remember that. Thats what I think, anybody think differently?
WOW... I feel so special. I had no idea that "blogging" was the same thing as "online journaling"...
I don't know what it was that first attracted me to the thought of letting people read my thoughts. Maybe it was the fact that I was never really one for verbally expressing myself, so instead turned to journal writing... In my journals I could yell at whomever I wanted, tell someone how much I liked them, and just write out how my life in general was panning out. Maybe I turned to blogging because my life at college has pretty much become sitting at my computer and doing artwork, writing papers, or sending emails....so typing a journal is so much more natural to me now than sitting down and writing one freehand... Typing is faster, and when I have little time to spare, but need to let it out, it allows me to do so.
What I love about blogging is that you can find so many people with similar interests to yourself, and make friends... even though you don't physically hang out with these other bloggers, there is still someone to talk to with similar experiences, lifestyles, etc. It's always a comfort to find somebody like that...
Anyways... paper writing awaits me... as does my lack of sleep... so until then.
I won't presume to know any ones reasons for blogging, as I'm not sure I completely understand my own. Instead I'll attempt to explain how I got started and maybe do some reflection along the way. ;)
I recently got started in computer science and was agitated that we had not done any stuff on the internet. I decided to take measures into my own hands and start up a web page. We have space given to us at my college, and it seemed a good learning process. So, off I went.
During the same time I had also moved away from home and gone through a rough break-up with a long time girl-friend. I didn't know anyone at my new college and was needing a form of expression. I had read someone's blog in the past and had been very enthralled with it. It was that blog that even put the idea in my head.
I found that, for some reason, it was very easy to say exactly what I felt when putting it on the web. I knew of course that very few people would actually read my work and those that did would be family and close friends. One would think that knowing the people you're closest to you would be the ones reading it, would severely affect the honesty of posts. I've not found that to be the case for me. I, of course, am somewhat careful of the information of others I give out, but normally feel comfortable rambling on about whatever boring and/or personal issue I'm dealing with at the time.
So, I guess the main reason I do it is a sense of catharsis. I have a tendency to ramble on about things that are sappy, convoluted, and/or boring. I don't like to talk about such things to people directly often. I find myself rolling my eyes at people (inwardly of course) when they talk about similar subjects. Perhaps you know what I'm talking about: the people that say, "Have you ever thought about *insert some inane or even common occurence* like *insert some off the wall or overused conundrum of an idea*?" Or, "Let me get you to think about something for a minute..." It's the attitude not the ideas that are annoying, but I find that such subjects have come to imply that attitude. So, to avoid all that, I say it on the web. That way, I'm not caging someone into a conversation they'll hate, but people can still listen if they so desire ;)
(ED'S NOTE: Portions of this post have appeared previously on The Last Page.)
It began just as practice.
That’s all the blog The Last Page was about in February 2002, and that’s essentially what it's about now, a year later. I wanted to learn HTML quickly, but more importantly, I wanted to start writing again. I had always been an avid journal writer, but as it happens, I type much faster than I can write in longhand now, and sadly, my penmanship has become so poor that I cannot read my own handwriting.
In addition to learning HTML and starting to write again, I was headed out on a very long out-of-town assignment in a cold, windy city that wasn't exactly rockin' around the clock. I needed to find a way to entertain myself. My boyfriend had started a thing called a “blog,” and was learning HTML faster than I was. I couldn't have that happen, so I decided to start one of my own -- to give me some practice. I did not have any idea of what my blog would be, what I would say or what I would write. I just began it in the early morning hours and went from there to here.
I had begun a blog that I honestly didn’t expect anyone to read. Often, regardless of what Bravenet tells me, I still feel no one is reading. All the same, I still blog.
And the more I blog, the more I learn. I could write that I learn more about politics and current events, but that wouldn't be true. I was a journalist long before I became an analyst, and I still work in the journalism industry, so I get more than my share of news and views, 24-7. What I find most fascinating about blogging is what I learn about people's lives, the big stuff and the little stuff. Kevin noted in his post that reading blogs is like reading minds. That is true in some cases. Most of my everyday blog reads are not based on current events, but on the real lives of the bloggers. My own blog is a mish-mash of the mundane insanity that is real life and whatever news tidbits of the day that catch my eye. I try to keep things at The Last Page light, funny and some times a little edgy, depending on the kind of day I've had at work. I often write with my tongue placed firmly in cheek, so the occasional reader may not read a post the way I had intended it. This is to be expected. And if you're a blogger, you have to manage your own expectations.
Managing one's expectations is something I don't think enough bloggers do. I think something some bloggers don't realize is that just because you are a blogger that doesn't mean you're going to get linked. More important than that is the rarely acknowledged fact that most of us are just playing on the Internet. A few of the bloggers here and there will possibly be discovered for their nauseatingly precise commentary (yawn) on the Middle East, libertarian politics, or whatever else that puts me to sleep. But the vast majority of us are what we are: bloggers. We have a keyboard, an ISP, an opinion about damn near everything, and a desire to put it up on the Internet. Regardless of how powerful a medium the Internet is, every blogger needs to realize that it is, after all, just the Internet.
These are my 3 blogging reasons to write eCuaderno:
1. To share content and research in a easy and fast way
Blogging appears to be a very effective way to share findings, news, links and ideas we gather all the time while navigating.
As a new media researcher (Media Lab, University of Navarra, Pamplona Spain), it is much more what you get than you can teach or share in a person to person basis. Blogging is a solution for that.
2. To have a test bed
Blogging is also a learning experience. A daily inmersion in the rich life of the web. A tool to research and understand better the ways we relate and communicate in the digital age.
3. As an educational tool
The use of blogs in education is one of the bigs issues nowadays (blogs in education, knowledge management blogs, reasearch blogs). Educational material and references, news and links could be easily shared in this environment.
Jose Luis Orihuela, editor of eCuaderno and columnist on
Blogonomics at the Spanish think-tank Infonomia.com.
Update: My blog eCuaderno is now at: ww.ecuaderno.com
Looky here. In the space of a day, our Technorati cosmos not only has some veteran blog members, but quite an assortment of inbound links.
It's a matter of time before Google finds BlogLogic too. Surprised it hasn't shown up yet.
Using an ancient technology, handed down over millennia, improved and refined along the way, I am able to read people's thoughts. And not just people nearby, or people I know. I can even read dead people's thoughts.
This gives me a great deal of power and knowledge - I can learn from their lives, their experiences, their dreams and fears, their insights and imaginings. I can study their successes and failures, learn from their great ideas and their mistakes, absorb their experiences, laugh at their jokes and wince at their pain.
This may seem like a scary idea - you may feel nervous and want to avoid me, but don't worry. I can only read your thoughts if you want me to. You need to be part of this too. You need to write your thoughts for me to read them.
That's right. I'm not talking about anything mystical or occult. Or perhaps I am - writing is an amazing technology; only slightly less amazing than language itself. To commune with others, breaking the bonds of space and time, is a wonderful privilege.
Small Pieces Loosely Joineddescribes how a newer technology has made it easier than ever before to read the thoughts of others and share our own. Truly the last thing out of the Pandora's Box of the Internet is this Hope.
That's why I blog.
writing my life publicly is one blogging obsession, as is evidenced by my livejournal: http://cksample3.livejournal.com
i've been writing steadily about much of the little private parts of my life since i moved to new york city back in january 2000. this serves several purposes for myself. it is first and foremost therapeutic. i realize that there is some separation between the web me that i write with the possibilities of others to read and the real life me that people would and do encounter in the real world. i also realize that both of those versions of me are different than the private me, the me that i think i am most (or some) of the time. but this textual blah blah blahging me helps me to work out that me that i think i am most of the time.
i think the reason that this textual vomitous of details is made public (or at least possibly public, depending upon who actually bothers to read what i write) is dual: 1. flat-out narcissism on my part. 2. some strange protestant need to confess my sins to my fellow men.
blogging is also useful to me. old friends find me on the web and reach out to say hi from time to time. i make new friends through it. i learn from it and i become more bold from it. although, i must admit, i hope my parents never bother to read my livejournal.
i also have two other blogs. one is http://blindsensei.blogspot.com, which is just a sort of experiment in putting forward bits of wisdom i need to learn in the very-fake voice of a blind sensei, like the one who used to be in an old tv show some of you may know. this blog is rarely updated.
then there is my more public blog: http://radio.weblogs.com/0102917/ which i use to blah blah blah a bit more professionally (in other words, i proofread it) about tech and politics and various things that i see on the web. more than anything else, this is my own public portal to the web. my public memory of what i've read on the web and what i've found interesting and what I thought about it. this is also the one where i keep checking the referrer logs to see if more people are reading me, or if someone who read something I wrote from the RSS feed posted it to their site. This is where the narcissism comes out full force. I think I've lost my steam.......that's another good thing about blogging. It's not professional writing. You are allowed to lose your steam.
So many people are now into online journals/weblogs. It seems to be the latest and quickest growing trend in the endless Internet community. Wether you're a teenager in high school and you want to let all of your friends know about the cute guy that you met over the weekend, or you love to stand over an over and you love new, spicy recipies, weblogs provide communication for everyone, for any reason imaginable.
I have been a member of the LiveJournal community for a year and a half now. In that time, I have posted 587 entries and am a member of 12 communities, so I would say that I would have a good idea about blogging in general.
For me, weblogs are my way of staying in touch with friends who aren't that close to me, as well as the ability to exchange ideas at the click of a mouse. I don't have many friends in the area, and coupled with my extreme shyness, it makes it difficult for me to go anywhere. Weblogs, as pathetic as this may sound, somewhat fill that simple void in my life. I'm able to catch the events of my friends lives who aren't in the immediate area, which to me is important, and I miss most of them terrible since my move. I can also be enlightened on other's positions of reality and relativism, conveniently in the comfort of my own "Friends" page.
I believe that weblogs offer so much to their users. If you're a math geek, there's a place for you. Maybe you want news on what's going on in your city? There's going to be a community for that as well. Or maybe simply you're looking for love. Well, yes, you can find that too.
Everybody has their own reasonings to this overwhelming popular service. And, chances are, you probably have a weblog too, for whatever purpose you use it for. The value for anybody and everybody is there, and it's for this reason that I've been so drawn into this, and can't see myself abandoning it for a while to come.
The internet has allowed something major to happen when it comes to making connections... with people, places, and many other things. Communication is instant, people are more likely to keep in touch through IM or email because it's there, it's easy and it's free or next to free to keep up with as opposed to snail mail that requires stamps (which keep raising in price) and envelops and ::gasp:: perhaps even hand written letters! The web has opened up a whole new world now and there is really no going back. It's changed communication and in turn changed the way people, everywhere, interact with each other on a daily basis.
Now I can email my mom in the middle of the night when I think of something I forgot to tell her. I can keep in touch with my best friend hours away when phone calls get expensive. I can work from my room and still get a monthly paycheck (which, by the way, comes in an online form too), and I can access any amount of knowledge I want thanks to the wonders of websites and google.com.
But what I really love about the net is the ability for online communities to come together. To thrive and grow without any outside interferance really. The topic or cause that brings them together can be anything. The reasons can be multiple. It doesn't really matter, the point is people come together. They learn from each other AND about each other. They exchange knowledge just as quickly as anything else and it's an amazing resource. You can meet people from across town or across the world, culture expands and in turn so does everyone else. Understanding becomes more common because online you are not segregated by anything silly like race, gender, or age. Online communities form out of need, out of want, or just out of nowhere and that is the beauty of it. Where can it go from here? Oh so many places. This site alone starts to look at some of these issues. I look forward to seeing its outcome because, just like any other community, this one has begun, and just like any other, who knows where we might all end up. :)
Does anyone else remember Cyberpets? They were an online craze back in the mid-90s and lasted for a couple years. This was back when things like this were kept simple because there was only so much technology to allow them to be interactive. Cyberpets were little images of animals or whatever else you could think of, some static, some animated that you "adopted" - usually by filling out a form on someone else's site which in turn allowed them to send you your Cyberpet image and information on what to do with it via email. Often the only rule was if you displayed your new "pet" on your site you also placed a link along with it back to the site you "adopted" it from. Seem silly? Maybe, but it was a fun thing for people to do - a great way to find out about new sites from links that weren't just made of plain text, and it also allowed people with a little graphic talent (or even those with none) to come up with their own Cyberpet creation to offer from their site the in turn gave them extra links and more traffic. It was a cool feature to have back in the day, haha. Now of course there are more "interactive" creations for kids to play with online, but just remember where those things got their roots.
This is coming along.... but not quick enough for me. Perhaps this week it'll all come together....
So this site is starting to come together, the look is changing as I figure out both how I want it to look and what I want it to do. I still need to figure out how to implement a few features into it though and layout the page a little better, but that will come soon... Until then I will ramble here once in awhile just to keep testing it out until the real version of the site starts.
testing this out for the first time...