I wrote the following earlier today on an old favorite MU* in an attempt to entice a friend there into the blogosphere:
ok ok, what the heck is a blog and how does one get one? LOL... is
it a website, most here have those but me, dunno how to do it...
That's a good question that I asked myself for a long time as I saw
blogs becoming more and more popular and not understanding why. Here
is the answer I came up with. A blog has three necessary elements:
- A web site with an owner dedicated to making frequent updates with
current information or commentary. The site is usually managed with
a software package that eases updates and presents the most recent
updates to site visitors in a format similar to newspaper articles.
- A group of regular readers of the site who frequently add their
own comments on the author's posts or on other readers' comments,
which is also usually facilitated by the blog software.
- An amorphous cluster of other blogs that are frequently read by
the site owner, or read and/or written by the blog readers, which
often trigger discussions on the blog in question. Again, the blog
software usually makes it easy to link articles on different blogs
with hyperlinks.
It is the synergy between these three elements that makes blogs more
than just frequently updated web sites and leads to the formation of
online communities as dynamic as MOOs were in their glory days.
The cross-over between blogs and main-stream media is a topic that is
being widely discussed that shows the potential of blog culture,
though I won't repeat the discussion here.
If you are curious about blogs, take a look at mine ([you're reading it now]) as an example. Follow the links I have to other
interesting blogs, then follow THEIR links, the the links on the
next set of blogs... until you find yourself immersed in the
blogosphere. Of course, Sturgeon's Law, that 90% of everything is
crap
applies, but if you look for a while, you're almost sure to
find a corner of blogspace that matches your interests and
sensibilities.
[A plug for our host...]If you want to try blogging yourself, www.blogger.com offers no-cost
sites that come with good basic blog managment tools and a selection
of decent-looking, easily-customized templates.
The above makes me sound like an evangelist, but I'm really just
starting to dabble. After you look a little, you will find people
who seem to eat, drink, sleep, and live for blogging. It can be as
addictive as MOOing.
See you in blogspace. [If you're reading this, then welcome to blogspace.]