Week 2 Reading Response

Wow, I thought I knew what a blog was coming into this course, though I’d never used one before I’d seen them, read a few, but I clearly had no idea what they were really about!  I really enjoyed the article “Weblogs: a history and perspective”by Rebecca Blood.  It was really interesting to see how it all started, what it started as and what it is today.  I, like many others, thought of blogs as a personal journal open to the public, more so than the traditional weblog list (or in Rebecca’s words the “filter-style” weblog) of niche sites and links to the, as Rebecca calls it, “hidden corners of the net”.  I did have one question while I was reading her articles (there were a few by Rebecca) and the question is likely simple and I’ve just missed it somewhere, but are weblog editors and bloggers the same thing?  My guess is that they are used interchangeably but I wasn’t 100% from what I read (keeping in mind I was reading the articles on my train ride from Toronto to London so I may have been a tad sleepy ) 

Just a side note and thought, it seems that to be a blogger or weblog editor you have a pretty big responsibility to your public to post daily and very frequently.  I gathered from the readings that you seems to be a sort of “bloggers code of ethics”.  I had no idea how time consuming true blogging can be!  Nor did I fully understand the persona you create when you blog.  I think I’m finally understanding why this is such a community!  I’m even getting a little excited about it, though worried that I will never leave my computer desk again!

I know I keep harping on Rebecca’s article but I really got a lot out of it.  The other part I wanted to comment on is the part when she talks about what she got out of her blog.  She mentioned that she began to value her own point of view more and started to consider her own opinions and ideas more carefully.  Until I read this I hadn’t really thought about that benefit to blogging but after reading it I can see how this can happen. 

Since this post is getting out of had in length I’ll only comment on one of the other readings (though they were all rather interesting!).  I enjoyed the article by Meg Hourihan “What We’re Doing When We Blog”.  It wasn’t until after I read the article that I realized she was a co-founder of Blogger, but that’s an aside.  After reading this article I found my mind racing back to work and the number of instances a blog would have been useful.  For example, I’m working on a proposal for the Wilshire Metadata award.  There are quite a few of us collaborating over email, a blog specific to this would be perfect!  I can’t tell you how many times we’ve tired to find an old email thread because we’d changed our thought process and then come back to it but couldn’t find the original discussions. 

That’s all I’ll post for todays readings, but I’ll add a subsequent post shortly on the case studies and blog software tools.

Vicki