entering the blogosphere

Amazing, I discovered today that I'm not the last person in the world to get a blog, as I'd previously thought. I might as well be, though, as the person even less in touch than me is actually my dad. Says something about my family, I know.

Anyway, I launched into a half–hour lecture on blogging and New Media, shifting paradigms of communication and all that, and continued for quite some time before realising I didn't really have much more of clue about what I was talking about than he did. Which lead me to ask – what the hell is a blog and what's the point, for god's sake?

(This is of course, one of the old favourites for people starting out blogging, isn't it? Stay tuned for a) angst about my life, with particular attention paid to details of my diet; and b) a detailed description of my cat.)

Now, both these questions could lead to long, pseudo–intellectual discussions on the nature of communication, changing modes of social interaction and the call to a new Digital Democracy: but you, dear reader, have heard all that many times before. Instead I shall answer both questions briefly: a) a blog is a body of random writings placed online in an attempt to deny the division between people who get professsionally published: i.e. those who have something interesting to say, and the rest of us: i.e. those who don't; and b) it serves to reinforce one's fragile ego and waste some time – without resorting to internet snooker, which is what the guy on the computer in front of me is doing right now.

So – that's how I define what I'm doing. I'm not playing internet snooker. Everything else is up for grabs.

: 09 May 2006 17:03 |  Tags: Blogging |  Comments (2) |  Report a problem