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?