Personal blogging is almost a cottage industry, especially among young people who make a habit of reading other people's blogs much as their elders peruse magazines and newspapers. Hyperlinks to online resources surrounded by fresh, personal commentary are evolving into a specialized Web publishing for, one no other medium can replicate. (Walker)
Weblogs: Where did blogging go right?
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April 7,2002 Somedays I hate the fact that I think SO DAMN much. I was told once or read once that I "live in my head". It is true. So, this paper I am doing for my Electronic Communications course is killing me but also encouraging me. Odd, I know. "Humans should not be misused, abused, overused, but they should be OF use." - Maya Angelou That may be the goal of humans everywhere. To simply be of use to someone else. Entertain them. Be nice. Go Maya! "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -Martin Luther King Jr. He's got that right. |
At first glance, this chunk of writing appears to be something you would read in someone's journal or diary. That person was writing it for his/her own benefit and might have wanted to keep it private from people that are against swearing or the teacher he/she has for this Electronic Communications class. It appears this way, but it is really the entry to a recent blog of mine. That's right, a weblog. I am a blogger.
A. Weblogs
This seemingly bogus terms are actually part of a largely popular feature on the World Wide Web. The weblogging activity began around 1994, and slowly it developed into encompassing not only a variety of types of weblogs, but also a variety of users as well.
Personal sites known as Weblogs have been around for a few years, offering Web-savvy individuals a forum for expressing opinions and a chance to share links to interesting articles or obsure tidbits…. Web logs provide a series of annotated links to items such as news stories, and often include personal rants. They are maintained by one person, most commonly someone who is involved in Web design or some other tech-related field. Weblogs are usually updated on a daily basis and always reflect the style and attitude of the author.(Battey)
In the beginning, the phenomenon now called blogging was little more than the sometimes nutty, sometimes inspired writing of online diaries. These days, there are tech blogs and sex blogs and drug blogs and onanistic teenage blogs. But there are also news blogs and commentary blogs, sites packed with links and quips and ideas and arguments that only a month ago were the near-monopoly of established news outlets. Poised between media, blogs can be as nuanced and well-sourced as traditional journalism, but they have the immediacy of talk radi. (Sullivan 43)
As a very basic definition, a weblog is "a frequently updated, chronologically ordered collection of hypertext fragments… it's a journal with the newest stuff at the top". This and a more detailed definition below come from kottke.org, Jason Kottke's very professional weblogging site:
A weblog (which is sometimes written as "web log" or "weblog") is a Web site of personal or non-commerical origin that uses a dated log format and that is updated on a daily or very frequent basis with new information about a particular subject or range of subjects. The information can be written by the site owner, gleaned from other Web sites or other sources, or contributed by users. A Web log often has the quality of being a kind of "log of our times" from a particular point-of-view. Generally, Weblogs are devoted to one or several subjects or themes, usually of topical interest, and, in general, can be thought of as developing commentaries, individual or collective on their particular themes.
Weblogs are the pirate radio stations of the Web, personal platforms through which individuals broadcast their perspectives on current events, the media, our culture, and basically anything that strikes their fancy from the vast sea of raw material available our there on the Web. Some are more topic-focused than others, but all are really built aound someone's personal interests. Neither a faceless news-gathering organization nor an impersonal clipping service, a quality weblog is distinguished by the voice of its editor, and that editor's connection with his or her audience. (JonKatz)
The other defintions created by bloggers themselves are vague and expansive ranging from "a webpage where a weblogger 'logs' all the other webpages she finds interesting (Jorn Barger/chymes.org)" to "just-in-time journalism (www.camworld.com)". "They are also the freshest example of how people use the Net to make their own, radically different new media. (JonKatz)"
For me, it's another form of the mass e-mail I sent to my friends about recent occurrences only this time, the audience will be more than my close friends. Plus, through this medium the opportunity to meet others that write/blog is there. A community of writiers exists and surfing into someone that blogs like you is a possibility. Perhaps blogger.com's motto says it best: "Push-Button Publishing for the People."
B. The "Goods" about Weblogs
What is their use? Whether a reader concentrates on the news blog vs. the more personal/confessional blog, it is evident that: "Blogs do two things that Web magazines like Slate and Salon simply cannot. First off, blogs are personal… The second thing blogs do is- to invoke Marx- seize the means of production." My main focus is on the more confessional weblogs, but the usage of the typical blog varies along with the types that are found. "Since there are a number of variations on this idea and new variations can easily be invented, the meaning of this term is apt to gather additional connotations with time.(kottke.org)" However it changes within itself (almost as if it has human qualities), some types in use right now can give insight into this evolving phenomenon:
The internet, as a whole, has no fixed forms. (Higgins) Through research, it seems as though weblogs can be basically placed into one of two categories. Rebecca Blood of Rebecca's Pocket (www.rebeccablood.net) deemed categories are that of the filtered-style blog and the journal-style. As mentioned before, however, the types still range.
Some, like Robot Wisdom (www.robotwisdom.com), are annotated tip sheets from divers who've plumbed the depths of the Internet. Others, such as The Blorg (rebekah.org/shite/blorg.html) are more diaristic, blending personal revelation with Web commentary. Still others, notably tech-driven Slashdot (www.slashdot.org), pool the insights (and family feuds) of multiple contributors into a single hive. (Higgins)
=Tech blogs- www.zeldman.com Jeffery Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report
"The members of electronic communities like Slashdot come together in the first place because of some shared interest - in this case a complex, sometimes highly technical range of acquired knowledge - Linux, open source, programming." (JonKatz) These types of blogs are basically a place where bloggers share the overall "willingness to endure technical hurdles" together as an online community. (JonKatz)
=News blogs- Andrew Sullivan covers Faith, Politics, Culture, People, The War as well as has a basic first page editorial ..
=Personal/Confessional Weblog- Eric McMillion aka squintum71 (at xanga.com)
=High school student blog- Dustin Chaney.. dealing with being homosexual, coming out, and having a mom who is psycho…
Their use and content are only amplified by their specific design. The format ranges and changes within each category and type previously spoken of.
Who are the bloggers of the world? Some are established writers like Andrew Sullivan (creator of andrewsullivan.com) that now get paid, through advertisers (brings in how private space can get ruled by public domain), to write/keep up his weblogging. His weblog is quite expansive and could rival the editorial comments that are found in any widely known magazine, journal, or newspaper. (It brings us back to the notion of how this could change journalism- talk about in conclusion with future possibilities, etc) Other bloggers range from students (college and high school) to technogeeks that want to share knowledge. Some sites are weblogs set up to allow people's weblogs to be linked to them for information on specific subjects. One in particular, The Scout Log, does just that and therefore doesn't have a single blogger, but many.
How does it fit into Electronic Communications? The more personal blogs make Electronic Communications more humanistic. Weblogs give Electronic Communication a voice and more of a community feeling, yet keeps it textual, and adds in the quickness factor which was the goal, to some extent, of Electronic Communiations (the WWW) all along.. to get information faster!
"Weblogs are a perfect example of the biological evolution of electronic communications. (JonKatz)"
The promise of the web was that everyone could publish, that a thousand voices could flourish, communicate, connect. The truth was that only those people who knew how to code a web page could make their voices heard. Blogger, Pitas, and all the rest have given people with little or no knowledge of HTML the ability to publish on the web: to pontificate, remember, dream, and argue in public, as easily as they send an instant message. We can't seriously compare the creation of the WWW with the availability of free technology that allows everyone with a web browser to express their unique, irreproducible vision to the rest of the world. Can we? (Blood)
The psychological impact on bloggers takes into account how we view electronic communications, the content of these blogs, their use, and the impact also seems to have as much variation as the types discussed. Bloggers like the print based diary/journal gain a sense of voice, are able to counsel themselves if not receive insight from other responding bloggers (can achieve electronic feedback about writing skills- a sort of online peer review group) and……..
Weblogging has its discontents, and bloggers aren't afraid to point out. Putting on his professional point of view, psychiatrist Gelwan sees several different drawbacks. He's bored by the cliqueish subset of the community, whose entries seem to be largely about each other. And he notes the narcissistic tendency of some who seem to talk only about themselve. (Higgins)
The more positive affects outweight those that could be considered negative. Bloggers, like Rebecca Blood, say:
More importantly, I began to value more highly my own point of view. In composing my link text every day I carefully considered my own opinions and ideas, and I began to feel that my perspective was unique and important.
This profound experience may be most purely realized in the blog-style weblog. Lacking a focus on the outside world, the blogger is compelled to share his world with whomever is reading. He may engage other bloggers in conversation about the interests they share. He may reflect on a book he is reading, or the behavior of someone on the bus. He might describe a flower that he saw growing between the cracks of a sidewalk on his way to work. Or he may simply jot notes about his life: what work is like, what he had for dinner, what he thought of a recent movie. These fragments, pieced together over months, can provide an unexpectedly intimate view of what it is to be a particular individual in a particular place at a particular time.
The blogger, by virtue of simply writing down whatever is on his mind, will be confronted with his own thoughts and opinions. Blogging everyday, he will become a more confident writer. A community of 100 or 20 or 3 people may spring up around the public record of his thoughts. Being met with friendly voices, he may gain more confidence in his view of the world; he may begin to experiment with longer forms of writing, to play with haiku, or to begin a creative project-- one that he would have dismissed as being inconsequential or doubted he could complete only a few months before.
As he enunciates his opinions daily, this new awareness of his inner life may develop into a trust in his own perspective. His own reactions--to a poem, to other people, and, yes, to the media-- will carry more weight with him. Accustomed to expressing his thoughts on his website, he will be able to more fully articulate his opinions to himself and others. He will become impatient with waiting to see what others think before he decides, and will begin to act in accordance with his inner voice instead. Ideally, he will become less reflexive and more reflective, and find his own opinions and ideas worthy of serious consideration.
His readers will remember an incident from their own childhood when the blogger relates a memory. They might look more closely at the other riders on the train after the blogger describes his impressions of a fellow commuter. They will click back and forth between blogs and analyze each blogger's point of view in a multi-blog conversation, and form their own conclusions on the matter at hand. Reading the views of other ordinary people, they will readily question and evaluate what is being said. Doing this, they may begin a similar self-discovery and intellectual self-reliance.
Why are we attracted to publish our blogs?
Why are we attracted to read them?
What went right?
My theory encompasses the three entities: that these blogs are remediated from a print item that was already in use by the general public, that the blogs are more popular for design reasons (vs. homepages and other hypertext, etc), and that these blogs are helpful, humanized, and can lead into more ways to research, write better, as well as include our fascination with reality and the taboo of reading someone else's thoughts…..
C. Remediation:(quotes taken from Bolter & Grusin's book- Remediation: Understanding New Media)
Remediation is when "each medium promises to reform its predecessors by offering a more immediate or authentic experience, the promise of reform inevitably leads us to become aware of the new medium as a medium" (19). Basically, "what is new about new media comes from the particular ways in which they refashion older media and the ways in which older media refashion themselves to answer the challenges of new media".
Remediation is composed, also, of two basic terms: hypermediacy and immediacy. Immediacy is "a medium who purpose is to disappear" (21). For example, within virtual reality, we are given the presence of no longer being in the space we are in. We 'seem' or our world 'seems' to disappear. And hypermediacy is "a medium that offers 'random access'; it has no physical beginning, middle, or end." (31). Hypermediacy's raw ingredients, "images, sound, text, animation and video", connect to immediacy. One medium relies on another.
With weblogs, as spoken of previously, the old media that is changed, made better, enhanced, has an expansive reach. Articles and information from bloggers and others mention talk radio, the diary, journalism, commentaries, and editiorials found in newspapers. In many ways they remediate homepages/personal web sites as well only in a more evolved/better fashion. All of these are meshed together to create the various forms of weblogs we find today. The confesstional/personal weblogs remediate diaries and journals, whereas, say, the new logs remediate types of editorials/articles/commentaries found in print sources.
What does remediation infer about weblogs? These weblogs question Bolter and Grusin's idea that electronic communications are geared toward immediacy and therefore, a non-text based culture. Weblogs prove through their popularity that people are still textually based and more attracted to that. They are remediated from print, but yet do not fully engulf themselves in the immediacy common to the internet.
Psychologically?:
So if great sites like Metafilter already exist and act in a way as to draw attention to unique or interesting links, what's the purpose of the thousands of small, individually-run sites? One word: personality.
Personality Drives Traffic!
The online world doesn't have the equivalent of no-name actors or actresses making a name for themselves fhrough the talent of their dramatic work. Well, actually, it does, and they are the weblogs and online journals.
Most weblogs are drivel, banal shit written by angst-ridden teenagers and adults sharing feelings, thoughts, and mind-numbing details about their daily lives that provide little insight into anything or anyone. But the gems can be found amongst the long-since abandoned or forgotten sites. These gems are personality-driven. That is, the person or persons writing for them are genuinely interesting. They are storytellers. They understand the need for a beginning, a middle, and an ending. They draw together like-minded links into themes for the day, for the week, for a lifetime. The authors of such weblogs and online journals have an inner drive for their work. They don't look for adoration or attention from other folks online. It comes to them naturally by the power of their work, by the originality of their stories, or by the genuine nature of their words.
And that is as it should be. Nothing should continue indefinitely if it has long lost the creativity and imagination that fueled it to begin with.(Grohol)
Weblogs are formally very immediate to the user as far as using them and publishing on them, and yet also not immediate for the reader to respond to versus, say, chat rooms or instant messages. Still personal in content, as far as confessional weblogs are concerned and in losing control, but the immediacy of feedback isn't there which is attractive to some. The blogger can say what they feel without being interrupted or criticized right away. This makes way for some in-between time: "The safe space of writing. (Brooks)" Plus, not many critics will take the time to comment, unlike, in chat rooms or with instant messages.
Weblogs are immediate in their publishing tactics too. Bloogers don't deal with HTML coding (unless they want to) like in a hypertext writing/personal homepage, they can publish from any computer, not just their own, and weblogs are appropriate for releasing emotions- ranting and raving instead of just showing photos of your family like on a homepage. These items also allow for much hypermediacy in having control over what they DO write even though they give up the control as to who can read it all. The "rawness", that I like, about weblogs is found in the ability to NOT be able to delete what was written and published.
Weblogs are socially indescribable. A question encountered now when writing a blog entry is: What can I NOT say? Who could I offend with this? The possiblities of protocol within the types of weblogs are different as well. In a sexblog ring, it is probably appropriate to describe your erotic situations and fantasies whereas on the techblogs, this would be unacceptable and frowned upon (even though the blogger wouldn't see them frowning).
Socially, the weblogs allow for the meeting of other bloggers. Within xanga.com, the dot-com I have gone to for my weblog, there are many webrings that I can belong to. A webring is a sort of electronic community of people that share common interests. So while someone may have many friends in their core group at school/on campus, they can also have a webring of friends and a completely different type of community to go to electronically. Technology is getting more and more designed towards keeping people social as well as, with weblogs, textual.
D is for Design:
".. and make sure design and technology work hand in hand rather than one being tacked on one after the other." (Mazur)
The web designer was the first person to take the web from being textually based to visually based. "The ultimate ambition of the web designer seems to be to integrate and absorb all other media. (B&G 208)" While the weblogs stay textual, it does integrate other media (sidebars of news articles, links of information, pictures and sound to connect to) better than homepages and some hypertext.
The main reason for the popularity of weblogs is built into the design. To compare it to the personal web page which hasn't received such a welcome to the general public, the immediacy and hypermediacy is there and in larger quantities. The personal site takes time, weblogs can be accessed from anywhere. Personal homepages don't allow for much linkage right away (they may have a "Links" page, but weblogs have it right on the first page uploaded) to other sources of supplemental importance, weblogs do. Personal web sites showcase the user's hobbies, interests, well-thought out essays, but rarely link to another source or site that the reader could access for further reading. Usually, a blogger has many links within their writing piece. This allows for control over what the user wants to read, and not as much scrolling. To find something within a personal site, the linear feel isn't there due to needing to link over to another page or pages. Weblogs have everything in a linear, chronological form making it easier and faster to find a date or specific information. This, in connection with the original medium of print, is perhaps why the public is attracted to the weblog because it keeps the linear form, but adds electronic communication's need for more control and more access.
Humanized design strategies taken by web designers, in general: "move the reader to desired information more efficiently, (202)" "bring (readers/surfers) closer to events by offering such transparent media instead of mere prose, (203)" "is economic, (204)" and "offers an even more private experience than television, because the individual browser is often alone with her machine. (204)"
"Indeed, the format of the typical weblogs, providing only a very short space in which to write an entry, encourages pithiness on the part of the writer; longer commentary is often given its own space as a separate essay. (Blood)"
Within this private experience, which attracts the reader, is the notion of reading someone else's diary. Something that was taboo has become acceptable. The reality television show has been remediated here perhaps by flipping it into reality internet, reality electronic communications. People essentially exploit their minds for the general public to read. On television, we can only watch people live from the outside of their bodies (Survivor, The Real World), but with weblogs we get to go inside. "Design should make use of the natural properties of people and of the world: it should exploit natural relationships and natural constraints. As much as possible, it should operate without instructions or labels.(Norman 188)"
Another reason for popularity is that "As a format and content approach for a Web site, the Weblog seems popular because the viewer knows that something changes every day, there is a personal (rather than bland commercial) point-of-view, and, on some sites, there is an opportunity to collaborate or respond with the Web site and its participants. (kottke.org)"
More than that, Blogger itself places no restriction on the form of content being posted. Its web interface, accessible from any browser, consists of an empty form box into which the blogger can type… anything: a passing thought, an extended essay, or a childhood recollection. With a click, Blogger will post the… whatever.. on the writer's website, archive it in the proper place, and present the writer with another empty box, just waiting to be filled.(Blood)
"Design is a creative activity whose aim is to establish the multi-faceted qualities of objects, processes, services and their systems in whole life-cycles. Therefore, design is the central factor of innovative humanization of technologies and the crucial factor of cultural and economic exchange." (icsid.org/iddefinition.html)
Design, in general, of everything we have needs to be easy to understand. What closer relevance do we have to understanding something than that of an object that is designed for ease with the human mind and body? "The operation of any device- whether it be a can opener, a power generating plant, or a computer system- is learned more readily, and the problems are tracked down more accurately and easily, if the user has a good conceptual model. (Norman 189)" Our concept model is the journal or diary. How much more understandable can the weblog be for the reader?
These weblogs provide valuable filtering function for their readers. The web has been, in effect, pre-surfed for them. Out of the myriad web pages slung through cyperspace, weblog editors pick out the most mind-boggling, the most stupid, the most compelling.(Blood)
"A major role of new technology should be to make tasks simpler. A task can be restructured through technology, or technology might provide aids to reduce the mental loa. (Norman 191)" Cell phones with voice activation, cars with travel programs built in, CD players in the trunk so the driver just pushes buttons, and an online journal the writer can access from anywhere all the time.
"Four major technological approaches can be followed: Keep the task much the same, but provide mental aids; use technology to make visible what would otherwise be invisible thus improving feedback and the ability to keep control; automate, but keep the task much the same; change the nature of the tas. (Norman 191-2)" Weblogs remediate print journals and diaries, keeping the task the same.. the journaling aspect, but with the mental aid of having things more visual, accessible, and quicker (people usually can type faster than they write). Thoughts normally invisible to the public, in the confessional blogs, are now made visible allowing for feedback, critical thinking, and more/better thought processes on the part of the reader and the writer. The ability to keep control is found in allowing limits placed on people's views and content in their blogs to be open ended. Very open ended. Weblogs encompass so much of what we love and need in text, and place it in a new environment, a visually based medium- the Internet.
D and a 1/2: Digression/Sidenote to Hypertext (pages 211-213 in Norman)
Perhaps this is the only area where hypertext wins out over weblogs:
Writers frequently complain that the material they are trying to explain is complex, multi-dimensional.
The ideas are all interconnected, and there is no single sequence of words to convey them properly.
Moreover, readers vary enormously in skill, interest, and prior knowledge. Some need expansion of the most elementary ideas, some want more technical details….
How on earth can a single document satisfy them all, especially when that document must be in a linear sequence, words following words, chapters following chapters?
It has always been considered part of the skill of a writer to be able to take otherwise chaotic material and order it appropriately for the reader.
Hypertext relieves the author of this linear order; the reader can pursue the material in whatever order seems most relevant or interestin. (Norman 212)"
Weblogs, do, however, allow chaos to be chaos, just in a more chronological order. For linear, textual thinkers (I would venture to guess this is much of the population) weblogs are simply easier to understand, access, and create- a goal of design in the first place!
E. Conclusion
Because of the easily accessible design, overwhelming popularity, and social/textual need (vs. other elements in the World Wide Web that are not: chat rooms, personal sites, and large-easy-to-get-lost sites), weblogs will be around for awhile and will either remediate upon themselves to continue to evolve and include more and more of an audience, or they will keep their roots and simply become more and more relied upon by larger and larger groups of people (companies, businesses, schools, etc).
There are varying feelings on the future of blogs:
Weblogs are, at best, an essential cog in this vast experiment we call the World Wide Web and at worst, a mindless diversion. In any case, many of them are interesting, thought-provoking, and oftentimes downright entertaining. In fact, the immediacy of the Web and the ability for people to constantly update sites makes Weblogs the perfect forum for individuals to express themselves in a creative manner while providing their readers with links to useful information.(Battey)
While weblogs don't have the reach and influence- thus, the commercial potential- of larger, more interactive and open sites, it's easy to imagine them as powerful supplements to the major foraging sites. And, depending on their members, could be influential at sharing memos, essays and idea. (JonKatz)
"Blogging is changing the media world and could, I think, foment a revolution in how journalism functions in our cultur." (Sullivan)
Is this a "publishing revolution more profound than anything since the printing press"? "Blogger could be to words what Napster was to music- except this time, it'll really work." (Sullivan)
"This is democratic journalism at its purest. Eventually, you can envision a world in which the most successful writers will use this medium as a form of self-declared independenc." (Sullivan)
"Although many Weblogs are a complete waste of time, there are a number of Weblogs geared toward technology professionals that are worth a visit."(Jim Battey)
What is the social impact these have and will continue to have? Better for high school kids to be on because they act as a means to communicate the chaotic times they are going through. For the technogeek, these blogs are a way to share findings and sources. And for the basic 'older' blogger using the weblogs for confessional usage, the blogs can lead to better writing skills and/or a better understanding of one's 'self'
We are left, really, with more questions. More questions to blog about:
Will weblogs outrank the New York Times Web site by 2007 based on a Google search of five keywords? (Sullivan)
Will universities and school use them more and more to get students writing and reading more as well as thinking critically about their technological environment they are growing up in?
Will corporations use them in place of the mass e-mail or bulletin board?
Every industry in the world has potential need for a quality weblog or two." "But what about a weblog for the homemaker? Or the thousands of hot rod enthusiasts?" "Another interesting application of the weblog model would be within corporate intranets. Where I work, much of the company-wide memorandums and communications is done via email, with some emails containing numerous attachments that sometimes weigh in at a hefty one-to-two megabytes. It'd be so much better if these emails only referenced documents somewhere on the intranet instead of them including them via attachments.(Barrett)
Will it replace the need for a newspaper in the morning?
'What I find especially in the coverage of technology is that there is such a scrum of journalism today,' said Scott Rosenberg, managing editor of Salon and a longtime technology reporter. 'There is such a pile-on. It's almost impossible for a single human being to monitor it all.'
'There are a lot of people who are reading it who are business people that are using it as a service to keep up with the news,' Glaser said. ' I didn't realize we would become a substitute for the news.' (Wang)
Will commercialization take over and pay you for your thoughts, thoughts with their product in mind?
Webloggers can also be fiercely protective of their independence. Like the editors of zines before them, they exist in a world beyond the gaze of the marketing exec and the venture captialist. 'Few webloggers are doing weblogs to attract millions of viewer,' says Gyford, who edits Haddock. 'They don't have any marketing budget to help them do that, so they won't.'"
'As we are increasingly bombarded with information from our computers, handhelds, in-store kiosks, and now our clothes,' says Blood, in an apologia she has posted on Rebecca's Pocket, 'the need for reliable filters will become more pressing.' (Alden)
Will they become excellent research tools?
Are they a peeking fad, and, if so, will they fade away or go out with a boom?
As advertisements creep onto banana peels, attach themselves to paper cups sleeves, and interrupt our ATM transactions, we urgently need to cultivate forms of self-expression in order to counteract our self-defensive numbness and remember what it is to be human."
"We are being pummeled by a deluge of data and unless we create time and spaces in which to reflect, we will be left with only our reactions. I strongly believe in the power of weblogs to transform both writers and readers from "audience" to "public" and from "consumer" to "creator". Weblogs are no panacea for the crippling effects of a media-saturated culture, but I believe they are one antidote. (Blood)
And through it all, I drew my inspiration from the cacophony of personal voices I found online. Here was the mother lode of personal expression- the one place in our lives that we (as people lucky enough to have access) can say whatever we want about anything we want. This was the anti-television. Digital democracy. (Powazek)
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"I think weblogging can be an important way that people share experiences of their world within the world - and hypertext, links, are the vehicle they use. (…) It turns on its head, potentially, the loneliness that Johnson (author of Interface Culture) identified as a by-product of self-contained hypertext works. It's the hypertextuality that makes it interesting to me - because in the links we put up on our sites, and through the commentary we make about the destinations, we find common cause with other webloggers. I think online journalling is great, make no mistake. Likewise, lists of links alone are great, an important resource. Neither are particularly interesting to me - but put those together and it's a completely different beast. It's a weblog."
This is mikel.org. "On weblogging." www.mikel.org/blogging.html 22 May 00. 23 Apr 02.
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Works Cited
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www.powazaek.com/wtf/17 Feb 00. 07 Apr 02.
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