Friday, April 08, 2005
Blog thoughts no.3
Well,here is my last blog account and last official day in the blogging experience for my University.Wouldn't you know it but I had this blog all ready to publish today and the server was down. After trying repeatedly to publish it finally seemd to go through only to be missing from my blog site. I guess this is just a reminder as to how antiquated blog sites, and indeed the internet to a certain extent, are. Technically speaking the Internet is still in it's early years and blogging even more so .Maybe in the future when everything speeds up,errors are negligable and we have hand held mobile computers blogging will become a new and exciting way of communicating as texting has become. Anyway It has seemed such a short time that I have been blogging that I have decided to continue with my blog on a fairly regular basis and hopefully at least one person out there will be pleased.
After six weeks I hope that I have given some people at least something interesting to think about or information about useful information about events in and around London. I , myself have learnt a few things and have laughed, cried (well nearly) and been horrified at some of the content of other sites. I realised that blogging isn't just about writing stuff on your own site, it is about reading other people's and leaving regular feedback on interesting facts. As a result, other people will regularly have a look at your own site and possibly leave comments. I think to enter a community fully though and to be deemed a popular site you have to have a real flair for writing,write regularly have lots of time and be fairly committed (into a sanitarium judging by some of the blogs out there). Scary Duck for instance has been very popular over the years due to his journalism skills and admits that some of his articles are thought out weeks in advance, now that is commitment for you . His journalistic approach also has a strong degree of wit and regular features which seem to keep people interested. How much is true and how much is 'artistic licence' ,however, is another matter!
I recently overheard one of my fellow students (yes,you know who you are) saying "blogging is rubbish,what on earth has blogging got to do with Interface Culture?"(Interface Culture being my course module).Well , I disagree with this entirely. The whole premise behind the interface culture is communication and that means linking with groups to swap ideas,aspirations,thoughts and debates.From this develops a culture. There is, therefore, two ways of looking at blogging. The first, as in the students idea, is just to write down your thoughts and day to day life etc and not to involve yourself with groups or other people and the second is by a two way communication with other like minded individuals.
I must say though blogging isn't for everyone, especially if your young and prefer shooting down zombies or blowing up army bases on your playstation. Judging by the thousands of blogs I have looked through the ones that have stood the test of time have been by people in the 25+ age group and possibly people filling in time in their lunch hours or escaping from that nagging partner and screaming kids. So for all those people I say , long live blogging!
After six weeks I hope that I have given some people at least something interesting to think about or information about useful information about events in and around London. I , myself have learnt a few things and have laughed, cried (well nearly) and been horrified at some of the content of other sites. I realised that blogging isn't just about writing stuff on your own site, it is about reading other people's and leaving regular feedback on interesting facts. As a result, other people will regularly have a look at your own site and possibly leave comments. I think to enter a community fully though and to be deemed a popular site you have to have a real flair for writing,write regularly have lots of time and be fairly committed (into a sanitarium judging by some of the blogs out there). Scary Duck for instance has been very popular over the years due to his journalism skills and admits that some of his articles are thought out weeks in advance, now that is commitment for you . His journalistic approach also has a strong degree of wit and regular features which seem to keep people interested. How much is true and how much is 'artistic licence' ,however, is another matter!
I recently overheard one of my fellow students (yes,you know who you are) saying "blogging is rubbish,what on earth has blogging got to do with Interface Culture?"(Interface Culture being my course module).Well , I disagree with this entirely. The whole premise behind the interface culture is communication and that means linking with groups to swap ideas,aspirations,thoughts and debates.From this develops a culture. There is, therefore, two ways of looking at blogging. The first, as in the students idea, is just to write down your thoughts and day to day life etc and not to involve yourself with groups or other people and the second is by a two way communication with other like minded individuals.
I must say though blogging isn't for everyone, especially if your young and prefer shooting down zombies or blowing up army bases on your playstation. Judging by the thousands of blogs I have looked through the ones that have stood the test of time have been by people in the 25+ age group and possibly people filling in time in their lunch hours or escaping from that nagging partner and screaming kids. So for all those people I say , long live blogging!
