Blogs - the connections that bind us

In the short period of six or seven years blogs have evolved from being personal online diaries of interest to a handful of people to a medium for newsbreaking stories of interest to millions.
Online journals were more of interest and use to the writer than the reader in general and as diaries in any medium, provided an outlet for personal commentaries, records of thoughts and quick reflections of the owner's life. They were not of interest to anyone outside of an immediate circle of friends. However it was easy to pour out one's thoughts when you were never sure if anyone would read them. Diaries in any form are therapeutic and form an outlet for pent up feelings and emotions and by recording information this can be emotionally healing.
Rebecca Blood noted that by reading and writing blogs, people gained two important aspects; firstly they realised previously unknown interests and secondly their level of confidance and self esteem increased as they saw readers agreeing with their comments and taking them seriously.
Obviously at this point in time, blogs were for the user and not so much the reader.

According to Catherine Seipp, after September 11, blogs evolved into sites which commented on news stories often with links to criticising the media. Today anyone can have a blog and sites have been set up so that the user does not need to know HTML or any web design knowledge.
Blogs can still be personal, are often opinionated, topic oriented and are often disrespectful.
They still appear to be an outlet for people with strong opinions and who need to tell someone their views on different subjects. Blogs are link based and usually include a blogroll which is a series of links to other sites and blogs. It is not difficult to link and link and forget where you originally began as you go off on many tangents to many different subjects. RSS feeds are an important aspect of blogs and as you post articles on a blog this will be sent to anyone with a who has set up a RSS feed from your blog.

Matt Welch in 2001 coined the phrase 'warblog' and today troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are blogging their experiences. The US government has warned that this activity could prove to be
dangerous to the safety of the troops and could be accessible by the enemy.
Blogs have been the downfall of many people who have written about their personal lives and employment and have lost their jobs as a consequence. It must never be forgotten that what is written on a blog can and might be read by anyone with access to the world wide web.

In 2007, Tim O'Reilly suggested that a code of conduct be written for bloggers. This is for self protection as much as anything and will try and rein in some of the bloggers who feel that anything goes!.
By 2007 it is estimated that over 100 million writers will maintain a blog. However, it is estimated that this year will be a peak for bloggers and many will become bored and abandon their blogs. The phrase 'dotsam and netsam' has been coined for the estimated 200 million blogs which have been abandoned and are 'floating around the web' unwanted and untended.

Blogs have become an important medium for keeping up to date with any organisation or activity that is web based. Many libraries have began posting information on a blog with links to their homepage. I will look at examples of this in my next post.