Blog on Blogging
If you think that blogging is for the IT geeks that have a "hackers tan" and very little of a social life, then just maybe I'm going to disprove that intial perception. I too once thought in this way, but as you can see I've seen the light and I'm here to show that blogging is becoming part of our culture and its going to be part of our history aswell. Blogs will float around the internet ether for years and years to come, so why not put you're 2 pence in, why not become part of this planets history, start a blog today, it wont save lives but it might lighter a few darkened ones!.
First of all lets start from the start.
What is Blogging?
"Blogging" comes from the term "blog", which in turn comes from the term "Weblog". A weblog is basically a journal/diary that is written in reverse chronological order about events in someones or a group of peoples lives. Thats about it, thats about all you need to know about what a blog is you could kind of think of Anne Frank as an early blogger.
What are Blogs for?
The simple answer to this question is ANYTHING, blogs can be about absolutley anything you like. Take this blog for example, its about blogging, how ironic. For my future blogs I plan to talk about a multitude of topics, Thundercats Vs He-Man in a fight, I plan to hit the "sub-way diet" and write about that, what happens when you mix certain things together, there is literally no end to the subjects that you can write about. Work, family life, favourite tv show, films, music. ANYTHING!
This is the reason why I no longer see blogging as a geek exercise, I dont mean to cause affence, but I see some blogs as boring, and please dont email me with complaints telling me that my blog is boring, because yes, it probably is boring, to certain people, but to others its GOLD! And these are the people that I am writing it for.
Blogs popularity boom
Whats the reasoning behind the sudden boom in blogs? I feel their are many factors behind it, but here I will just talk about 2 of them.
Firstly, better internet connection world wide. Broadband has been a huge help to getting people that weren't hooked up to the internet online. Living in Britain I have noticed that it has only been recently that internet connection have become a decent speed, Vigin Media are now offering up to 10Mb broadband for only £35 a month, thats the top end but just to get connection to the internet with Virging Media they do a 2Mb package for just £15 a month. This then gives more people the ability to add their views to the World Wide Web. Not only that but if like me you bundle your phone, cable tv and internet into one package it works out even cheaper! There are many more internet providers available in the UK, AOL, BTBroadband, Pipex, tiscali the list can go on. All of them are now jumping on the bandwagon to provide cheap internet access to the whole of the UK.
Secondly, the types of people that are on the internet. Myspace.com and MSN has played a huge part in introducing the "instant messenger generation" to the world of blogging and these people are blogging about absolutley anything and everything that goes on in their own worlds! They mainly blog between themsleves but its all publically viewable (if the user allows it to be). Look at the succss gained from Myspace.com by the Artic Monkeys, the depth of people on that site is amazing (well done tom).
So these are the main reasons I feel the blogging is moving away from its "geek" perspective and moving at great speed toward the main stream. I do have much more to discuss on this subject but I'll leave that for future posts.
Enjoy blogging, you lovely bloggers you!