My opinion of Blogs

Although I've never had a blog before this one, I have nothing but positive feelings about what a it means to be a blogger.

I have yet to think of a reason to write my own blog apart from this one but that doesn't prevent me from appreciating the good things that arise from blogging.

If you look at what was available before user-friendly blogs came along, it's no surprise that there are billions of blogs online today. WYSIWYG applications were great but still required some technical know-how to make the content viewable online.

The development from CMS (Content Management Systems) which are Not user friendly, to WYSIWYG web blogging platforms has removed much of the technical hurdle for ordinary people. Now it's easier for anyone with something to say or just a curiousity to create their own blog - for free.

Age, sex, religion the entire gamut of worldviews make no difference here in the blogosphere.

I think blogs have extended the abilities from email and newsgroups, where the content of a blog is asynchronous but on a timeline that is surrounded by a relevant mix of hyperlinks and further choices within the blogs context. A single blog page makes a point or three and it serves up information without losing the reader in what might be termed irrelevant or uninvited communication. There is no such compendium of 'threading' or interconnecting patterns in an email or in newsgroups.

The true positive here is the blogger does not have to work hard at connecting ideas or forming loose categories since most blogs offer support to do that in some way or another that is point and click friendly.

Unfortunately the popularity of blogging lends itself to everyone thinking it's ok to blog about everything. Nearly. Some blogs are wrong, and I believe most of them fall under the business or commercial end of the blogosphere. Call it a gripe but I see no value in a blog that purports to help or inform when it's written like a product brochure or service proposal. I land on the page like that and immediately feel that the author is not 'there'. I expect a blog to give me a reason to believe there is a person with an opinion behind the page, but that's just me...