Sunday, January 23, 2005

WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT BLOGS? PART 2

I still have trouble explaining to friends and family what the excitement about blogs is all about. I decided that I needed to list my thinking in some kind of an orderly way.
  1. Web page are static, blogs are dynamic.

    I didn't actually come up with this wording; another student in my graduate technology class did (can't remember his name). What it means is, that a web page is designed to be a finished, highly polished jewel, to be admired for the ages.

    A blog, in contrast, is a quickie scrap materials & glue project, meant to serve a purpose for a short time, then tossed in a drawer (or a wastebasket). That a given post may survive and be referenced for a long time is a quirk of the medium - electrons are cheap to store.

  2. Books, and even magazines and newspaper have limitations on entry. Only a few can see their words in print, due to the cost of the medium.

    Blogs, in contrast, are the equivalent of the street corner - open to all, no matter how deluded.

  3. The ability of anyone to set up a blog means that ANYONE does - the talented and interesting, as well as the tediously boring. However, I tolerate them better, since I don't pay for them, unlike print material.

  4. Publishing is undergoing a real revolution, not unlike the change in the days of Gutenberg. The cost of publishing has made it possible to bypass the elitist gatekeepers.

    It also has the potential to light a fire under students. As never before, they have the ability to leapfrog past the editorial eye of their teachers, and seek their audience on the Web.

    There's nothing like knowing that what you've written has been read by someone who doesn't have to read it. Whether or not they agreed with it, approved of it, or enjoyed it is immaterial.

    With this technology, what could English classes become?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really enjoyed exploring this site. Hope to return some day











Anonymous said...

Hi everyone,
I don't know if for you is the same but I love everything that is new and at the present time it's difficult for me to do without.
The stuff that I like most are the technological things that I can put in my bag. As you can imagine my cell phone is really important in my daily life.
I am a fanatic of mp3 ringtone. I change several of them a month so I want a new one, immediately. The good part is I'm a student so my parents pay for them and further to find the right monthly offer is not difficult.
Time to go back to study.
See you soon
Linda.

Anonymous said...

nice job men:)