What’s a blog and what can I do with it?

Whenever I’ve told friends that I’m creating this blog, I almost inevitably get the question: What’s a blog?

In Rebecca Blood’s The Weblog Handbook, she defines four basic purposes for blogging: self-expression, keeping in touch (like letters to family and friends if you’ve moved), information sharing (lots of political blogs do this), and building a reputation (say, expertise in a particular field).

There’s also an interesting overview of blogging here. But one of the best ways to find out about blogs is to surf around and read some. I started at Rebecca Blood’s blog page where she lists several. From there, if you find a site you like, look at their “blogrolls” – lists of blogs in the side column.

What about this blog?

I’m still not sure what my blog will turn out to be. So far, I’ve done a lot of commenting on and linking to political news because that’s what’s gotten under my skin lately. As a writer, I had also hoped to use this for creative self-expression, maybe getting some of my friends to share their pieces here – the Web is also a medium for connecting.

But how much personal stuff do you want to share publicly? Here’s a cautionary piece about the online diary: “Why Web Journals Suck.” The author does also offer some suggestions. The Diarist.net looks like a great resource for online journals - to cut through to some great ones, see The Diarist Awards. One other form of blogs is the “keeping in touch” type and a nice example is A Year in Cornwall.

So my blog still in its formative stages. Let me know what you think (use the mailto envelope icon under the calendar on the right, or for those who have my personal email use that). Meanwhile I’ll keep blogging and see where this goes.

7:06:46 PM