Who blogs? And why?
But in order to expose the motivations of bloggers, we must first explore the history of blogging. It is necessary to consider a couple of questions.
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The first weblog, links.net, was formed by college student Justin Hall in 1994, but the shortened term "blog" was coined in 1999 by Peter Merholz, after he used the term on his personal blog, peterme.com (Thompson, 2006; Mandal, 2011, p. 155).
But to return to our history lesson, I would be remiss to overlook the creation of Blogger.com, the very program that allows me to share my wit and wisdom with you today. Created in 1999, Blogger was one of the first free blogging services that gained popularity (Thompson, 2006). The setup was simple, requiring no knowledge of HTML coding (and often, little knowledge of anything else, including the blog's topic). It provided a free, accessible platform by which everyday people could share their ideas and experiences with the world. Who knew it'd become an empire?
When did blogs (and blogging) begin to gain a significant following?
In Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters (Rosenberg, 2009), journalist, blogger, and author Scott Rosenberg puts forth an interesting premise that the 9/11 terrorist attacks spawned the nation's interest in blogging. At Say Everything's open, founder of Gawker.com Nick Denton offers his thoughts about blogging's impact on his remembrances of that day.
Only through the human stories of escape or loss have I really felt the disaster...And some of the best eyewitness accounts and personal diaries of the aftermath have been published on weblogs. These stories, some laced with anecdotes of drunken binges and random flings, have a rude honesty that does not make its way through the mainstream media's good-taste filter. (Rosenberg, 2009, p. 7)
For the first time, Rosenberg (2009) writes, the American people were able to receive minute-by-minute updates from regular people, people deeply and directly affected by tragedy. In years past, Americans waited anxiously by radios and televisions for news on the sinking of the Arizona or the fate of President Kennedy, but with blogs (and the Internet, in general) news is pumped out fast, allowing for genuine pathos to color the black-and-white of the news. Though some argue that the Internet is an impersonal medium by which to share one's life, I disagree. How often is it that real people get a chance to share their experiences openly?
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In the next lesson, we will dive headfirst into the realm of the blogger, exploring such themes as motivation, identity, and purpose.
And I promise, all of this really does have something to do with libraries. Honest.
References
Mandal, P.S. (2011). Blog and its Role in Library and Information Services. Journal of Library & Information Technology, 31(3), 155-158.
Rosenberg, S. (2009). Say everything: How blogging began, what it's becoming, and why it matters. New York: Crown Publishers.
Rosenberg, S. (2009). Say everything: How blogging began, what it's becoming, and why it matters. New York: Crown Publishers.
Thompson, C. (2006, February 20). The early years. New York Magazine. Retrieved from http://nymag.com/news/media/15971/
