Welcome to the Blogosphere

Just a few years ago, with the rise of video games, cable television and a myriad of other ways to plug in and tune out, some people were predicting the decline of communication. We’d all squirrel ourselves away in front of some big electronic box and never be heard from again.

On the contrary, thanks to email and cell phones, there’s been an explosion of communication. Not only is the communication instantaneous, but, as anyone stuck in a line or on a bus behind a cell phone user would attest, it’s constant. Quantity is not a problem even though quality may indeed be suffering.

Yet, it doesn’t have to be so…we can embrace some of these new forms of communication and make them our own. One of the latest communication trends is blogging. Weblogs, better known as “blogs” are frequently updated online diaries or personal journals.

Letters to Your Friends, Letters to the World

Unlike web pages, they are more dynamic—the writer (or blogger) adds entries frequently, often once a day, and entries are arranged on a page in inverse chronological order (most recent entry at the top). Sometimes more than one writer is responsible for entries and some blogs allow comments from readers, but generally, blogs are written by one person for either a public (webwide) or private (through passwords) audience.

There are blogs on almost any subject—news, politics, current events, hobbies—and they have become real “discussion communities” for those interested in the particular topic. Yet, personal blogs can be a lot of fun. Many are written with the knowledge that anyone with web access can read them—they become letters to the world!

Several web blog services allow for private blogs—accessible only to those to whom you’ve given the web address and password. These can be written for and shared with family and friends across town and around the world.

Quality matters in a good blog

This is where the quality part comes in. When blogging, think about your audience and think about what you’d really like to share with them. The best blogs are not mere diary entries—they are two-way communication and can offer the writer and the reader a way to share their thoughts on big and small things and contribute to an ongoing dialogue.

Author Dan Gilmour summed this up very well in an article on blogs posted on the Canadian blog site BlogsCanada: “What the best individual blogs tend to have in common is voice—they are clearly written by human beings with genuine human passion.”

Betty

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