We’re celebrating having won a revolution this weekend.
Blogging is a revolution in communication.
Sometimes (and this scares me) I have to remind myself that I have a real life with real friends in a real world. Not that the friends I have made aren’t real. I just haven’t met them yet. Trine and I have been having an ongoing conversation about this subject; and I wondered onto Annush’s site. She was talking about feeling like a voyaeur sometimes and I knew exactly what she meant.
We might all be remembered as being in the vanguard of a movement that’s bigger than any I can think of since the invention of the printing press. That’s my bias; I like words better than images. I go for good writing in TV, films and plays; great acting helps much, so does music. then there’s animation, old school and anime, great graphics–I love poster art, and things I can’t yet conceive of.
Blogging can combine all components. I love the thought of reading a book in print, plugging it into my computer and have links of all types come up. Think I’m being silly? Narcissitic? (Seer into the future is the correct answer)
I would love to know what you think about blogging; where you see it going; and maybe what it and publishing will be like in the future. Complete essays only. Whatever. I’m just interested in your thoughts.
For something really scary, watch the video included in Trine’s comment. Warning: don’t watch it before going to sleep. The video is scary; Trine’s comment is great!
Will be keeping this post first up for comments as I find them fascinating, and worthy of much exploration.
I can’t decide if blogging is new media or new community. I’ve been delighted to find new writing and art and craft in blogs (including here) but even more intrigued to be finding new friends (including here.)
Great post. Blogging is a new media. Voyeuristic-personal blogs have reached their limit, in terms of audience, I believe. However, blogging as a publishing medium, especially for news, is unlimited. By the time my life expires, print newspapers are dead.
I enjoyed your blog by the way.
I think blogging is the new media, i agree it will take over, especailly with the RSS feeds.. but i disagree with colin on the personal blogs, i think those are becoming stronger then ever. I think in this day and age we need that human contact, and the personal blog provides that.
intersting you should bring this up. as you know I will bite. 🙂
first though, read this – you’ll love it: http://www.jdlasica.com/articles/coljun98.html
I think it is very interesting indeed. Everything we say in here (blogosphere), every word we write, is remembered (recorded). The digital world is a HUGE collection of information. is it important. Oh yes it is. But it is also quite scary.
For the scary bit, watch this: http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/
For the good bit, for as you know I love it, I think it is – as I’ve said before, POTENTIALLY democratising and, as you said, meritocratic. We’re lucky i think, in that we are writing right now. Right now the Internet is still open, it is still relatively unrestricted, open and the possibilities are huge.
My sad and gloomy prediction is that it will be closed down, controlled, apropriated by the multinationals. And that we’re now in a moment of freedom, which we should cherish and exploit and explore. It’s like the 1970’s music and drugs. That was freedom, then it got shut down and taken over by the multinationals, we’re having that freedom now. So seize it!
oops, sorry, thought it hadn’t posted…
I think blogging is old hat, just the technology to do it is updating constently. people used to have personal journals online back in the day but it envolved constantly updating code and moving posts around. now you sign into a single page and php and mysql manages all of it for you. or better yet just take a picture or text with our cell phone. it will interesting to see what the next move for blogging is but whatever it is i’m all for it.
I’ve heard about blogging on cable news shows, but I’ve not even been blogging for a month yet! It’s already obsessing in my brain though. I’ll speak for my 1st 3 week, I find it refreshing. Everybody I’ve had contact with is pleasant & supportive. I’ve chosen not to write about political issues because I feel too passionate about them. I cant express myself without getting upset. I have no idea what the future is. Hey, I’m old!!
I find you as an inspiritation though, I really do. I check for new entries daily & enjoy when I find one. 🙂
jane the insane
Thanks to all of you. When I first “met” Doug I was the only person he knew on the blogosphere, and now….
Jane’s wonderful comment posted twice, was going to leave it because I love to read compliments about myself. Though I’m a horrible role model as I have no gimmick or theme and lately I’ve been feeling that my blog looks like an old car with political banners everywhere.
I badly want to stay out of politics on Courting but somebody will say something, or I’ll see or read something and I’m off. Can’t help it. Was raised to speak my mind. Blogging has introduced me to communtities of people that I would have never known existed before. It’s beyond my imagination that some people laugh at people who are moral relatavists–or people who can’t quote one particular source of knowledge for their point of view. Always thought that being educated and open to others thinking is important. Now I understand how Bush played up Kerry’s flip flopping and why it became so central to the election. Blogging taught me that.
What can you say? If you already have an internet connection and a computer (and if you don’t you can go to your local public libary, if the reichwingers patriot act doesn’t stop you), its cheep, its fast, its easy, and its fun and addictive.
I blog, mainly, to get practice writing on a regular basis. I did a bit on my one year blogiversary you might like to check out on the 10 June archive if folks with no click aversions dare.
I also blog because, as some people have told me, I have an opinion about everything. It’s a great place to dump your thoughts, elst one could go nuts keeping it bottled up.
I like your idea about writing versus pics or other media, Pia. however, I find that blogs with pics or fancy graphics win BE Battles more than those who just write. Perhaps that is part of the dumbing down of America that W (of W, Rove and Co) have contributed to..
Anyway, this comment is getting too long.
Blog on sister, blog on – oh, and I don’t consider you a cyberstalker…following me around to various comment spaces…:-)
Like Trine, I fear corporatization. But it’s hard to imagine how that could kill ALL the independent niches. I really like the democratic nature of blogging and the genuine interactivity now.
blogging is unbelieveably special for me.
i hope these comments by ur readers provide backup. they do for me!
i’ve met people i admire who read my blog and emailed me! i NEVER expected that.
when i was 16 years old i called a talk radio show and told the host (ira fistell) that based on books, magazines and other historical data, the world is losing the art of conversation. blogging has certainly revolutionized the art of conversation.
great topic!!!!!!!
Love your site, came here via blogexplosion. everyone on earth could have a blog and the medium would still be fresh, continually reinvents itself.
As a transvestite, I used to use a lot of message boards and forums to meet people like me and form communities of support. Forums like Yahoo Groups are such rigid forms, and transgenered people are such a varied group. that no real sense of community could form. With blogging, I’ve found that ties form between like-minded individuals. Instead of having one-size-fits-all communities where we’re expected to gather, we each have our own, personal, overlapping communities based around the blogs we read and contribute to.
Blogging has been a paradigm shift in the way I use the net.
I just discovered your blog through blog Explosion, I really enjoy your writing. THis was a great post and gave me something to think about. I think blogging is a way for people to open up about their lives and share their experiences. You put yourself out there, and give other’s a glimpse into your life. It can be scary, and sometimes I’m uncertain whether or not it’s truly such a good idea. But it’s also rewarding because you get to peer into other’s people’s lives. Sometimes you read something that makes you feel less alone in your own situation. That can be comforting. But you’re right, it’s a good idea not to become TOO absorbed in it.
Blogging is a further extension of the quality of internet content. Most of it is pure crap, but there are jems if you look for them. It is important that we view blogs with a critical eye, as the information they present does not have to go through the useual editorial fact-checking process for news.
I try to stick with opinion to avoid this problem…I also try to stay away from personal stuff of the “I got up, ate breakfast, and spent the rest of the day trying to like myself” variety.
I think blogging may be the last part of the web that the multinationals really can’t do anything about. These days there’s not much question about where people are going to buy stuff. There’s not much point in setting up an online store specifically to sell something. Just post it on ebay. Well, there are some exceptions, but not a lot. And most of those belong to the big corporations or the people selling stuff to them. BTW, what was supposed to be scary about Trine’s post? 😉 The Supreme Court deciding recently that cities can seize your land and give it to someone else…now *that’s* scary.
i blog to clear my mind. i blog to see if others feel as i do. i blog to find out if i’m crazy or sane. i blog because i can.
Thanks all. I used to think that I blogged to clear my mind so that I could get out all the clutter and write totally linear wonderful articles for publication.
Then blogging became its own reward. Only it doesn’t pay the bills!
So I won’t be blogging on Bring it on! (Regular rotation, can’t seem to stay away from the sidebar) for the summer as I try to write two books–one a memoir on being adopted and loving and adoring my adoptive family—it seems so stupid to call them that as they’re my “real family”
I met my birth mother who is a very nice woman but wasn’t my mother.
Blogging has given me the confidence to know I can be as un politically correct as I want about adoption, and there will be a market for it.
And many people really really like my totally non linear essays. thank you! I will try to make them more linear because publishing people like that–but you’ve all shown me that people will read me–linear or not!
Trine’s comment isn’t scary; the video is scarier than hell 😉
Blogging is redefining, and re-establishing the concept of community which is disintergrating amongst neighbours, and areas… but online, people are connecting, communicating, learning, and sharing in a way they never did before.
All hail the blog!