Blogging headache!

Jacob Nielson, in his article, "Weblog Usability: the top ten design mistakes", believes that a weblog "frees you from Web design". But I'm still trying to navigate my old school mind around the very words weblog, let along trying to figure out what that word signifies.

If a weblog is about usability then I'm at a disadvantage. I've never really read a weblog before. So how am I meant to construct my own?

Actually, that's not really totally true. I suppose I have read some blogs before, on MySpace of course, like DER!!! lol. omg. OK, so deliberately added the lol in.... to emphasize the language one needs to know in this crazy new cyber world of which I am no citizen.

No, I am the mayor of struggle town instead. AND I use that lame cliché that I normally fondly use to describe a hangover because this whole concept is one massive hangover.

I should just hit up the local and neck some gobble gobble moo moo smack downs, or better still, yaga bombs. Do you know what they are? Drinks of course.

Well I know what they are but I have no idea what HTML means or what hyperlinks are. Hope fully by the end of this assignment I will because currently I'm supposing that my head would feel better after a grueling session popping brain cells with unknown substances brewed in a back yard wannabe winery than actually figure out what it is I'm meant to be doing.

Surely, this can't be it! Can it?

I've read the article and know what not to do, but what do I actually, well, DO?

blogs versus websites... the difference is more than a Dr Seuss comic!

A blogville accountant was heard to say, "Should I blog or not blog? Should I blog today? It is true they are tools with much to convey?”
(Lang 2005, p.36)

Blogs may be comic sounding like above but Lang argues that they aren’t a Dr Seuss invention.

Blogs have been around for a few years but gained credibility in the US in 2004 when three attorneys created a blog “Power Line”, in which they disproved CBS news reports about George W Bush’s military service and received 'Blog of the Year' in 2004 by Time Magazine.

So, blogs are much more than an online diary for teenage-angst poetry it would seem (or perhaps they began as much more anyway).

According to Lang, blogs are “an information-sharing tool with many business possibilities” (Lang 2005, p.36).

In 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary added the word blog, defining it as: “a frequently updated website consisting of personal observations, excerpts from other sources etc., typically run by a single person and usually with hyperlinks to other sites; an online journal or diary”.

Another definition is supplied by Denise Howell, a Californian attorney, who defines a blog as “a web page so simple that its basic functions are well within the grasp of those who may have only basic technical ability” (Lang 2005, p.36).

Both of these definitions categorize a blog within the context of a web page. Yet, they are not the same thing.

So how does a blog differ from a webpage? Lang argues it is to do with accessibility. Blogs are about access because of “low entry costs” Furthermore, blogs are “accessible to small firms and a basic blog is easy to establish and to update, requiring no special skills” (Lang 2005, p. 37).

In other words, “once you’ve created a blog you can add new postings as easily as you compose and send an email” (Lang 2005, p.37).

Blogs are more popular and therefore have the advantage over websites. Lang offers three reasons as to why blogs attract more links than websites:

CULTURE: a culture exists in the “blogosphere” that encourages bloggers to link to each other.
RANKING: blogs rank higher in search engines due to their frequent updates and their structure which is easier for search engines to index than a conventional web site.

READABILITY: blogs are more fun to read with crisp and quirky writing.

So blogs really have taken priority over web sites it seems, due largely to their culture, ranking and readability as defined above. Blogs are the popular future of the internet, accessible and almost as fun as a Dr Seuss comic (and definitely more informative and even more intimate).

The whole world in our hands...

Blogging - does it feel like we have the whole wide world in our hands or that we are consumed by the world wide web.. hmmm?

Bloggers are driven to document their lives, provide commentary and opinions, express deeply felt emotions, articulate ideas through writing, and form and maintain community forums.
(Nardi et al 2004, p.41)

Is blogging a new “grassroots” form of journalism where “citizen journalists” shape democracy outside the mass media and conventional politics? This is what Nardi et al (2004) ask in the opening paragraph of their article, “Should we Blog?”

The vast majority of blogs are by ordinary people, however, not all whom think of as a form of citizen journalism but as a modern way of keeping a journal. So, is blogging a craze in personal communication or something more? And just what motivations lie beneath the art of blogging?

Nardi et al conducted numerous in-depth surveys to help determine why people blog. They interviewed 23 people altogether (16 men and 7 women, aged 19 to 60). All were well educated middle class adults living in the same geographic: California.

Some of the things Nardi et al discovered were:

PRACTICES:

• “The informants typically found blogs through other blogs they were reading”. So, through the blogs of friends and colleagues, as well as through links, “most blog pages reserve space for linking to other blogs” (Nardi et al 2004, p. 42).
• "Some bloggers post multiple times a day, others as infrequently as once a month”. Some bloggers found they suffered “blog burnout” and would stop and start. (Nardi et a 2004, p.42).
• They found “tremendous diversity” in content from scientific commentaries to personal revelations (Nardi et a 2004, p.42).
• Most bloggers are “actually aware of their readers” and have “a personal code of ethics dictating what goes into their blogs” (Nardi et a 2004, p.43).
• Blogging “provides scope for an enormous variety of expression within a simple, restricted format” (Nardi et a 2004, p.43).

MOTIVATIONS:

The research showed that “bloggers sometimes poured out their feelings or ideas and sometimes struggled to find something to say” (Nardi et al 2004, p.43).

Nardi et al categorized the motivations into the following:

• Blogs to ‘document my life’ – to record activities and events
• Blogs as ‘commentary’ – to express their opinions
• Blogs as ‘catharis’ – as an outlet for thoughts and feelings
• Blogs as ‘muse’ – “thinking with computers” (Bonne et a 2004, p.44)
• Blogs as ‘community forum’ – a place to express views to one another in a community setting

Based on this study Bonne et al found that “part of the allure of blogs is the easy way they move between the personal and the profound” (Nardi et a 2004, p.46).

There are a range of motivations for blogging, where blogs “combine information and modulated interactivity”. Bloggers appreciate the medium because they can “post and share their thoughts without the extensive feedback associated with other forms of communication” (Nardi et a 2004, p.46).

From this paper I have come to view the versatility of blogging as a medium for journals of day to day life to those of serious commentary. Blogging has become a mainstream use of the internet.

Still, I’m not completely convinced. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a blog Nazi or technology cynic, I just prefer to sit and chat with my friends (face to face) whilst enjoying a coffee or a drink. However, I think the two can compliment each other. Who knows, maybe I too will get caught up in this “flourishing phenomenon” (Nardi et al 2004, p.46).

once upon a time in a land without sleep in my mary poppins car to uni i did a crawl like creep and now i must compose a blog of professional prose... hmmmm!