And what of blogging?
Basically, my opinion of blogging is similar to my opinion of 24 hour news channels. It represents an open space to let people voice opinions on stuff that not many care about. Anyone can blog. You have free services with Wordpress.com and Blogger, just to mention two of the biggest. As of now, 607,551 people have downloaded Wordpress and may or may not be running it (and running multiple blogs off the one download).
But, I do think that the real power in blogging comes from the opportunity given to the author to express him/herself when they wouldn’t otherwise. It basically allows you to reveal more of yourself to your friends (and because of the proliferation of blogs, your friends - that you let know about your blog - are really the only people who might see your site regularly). You’re putting information out there that you are may have E-mailed previously. You are expressing yourself in a way perhaps not before know to your friends. Because you take the time to do it, you write about things that may matter to you.
There are other reasons to do it too. You can aggregate information for your own use. You can set up a collaboration site to keep a group of family, friends, or similarly interested persons connected. You can even remain anonymous and reveal your secrets to strangers. Well, at least you think you are anonymous. Or you can be an exhibitionist.
Any way you use it or look at it, it is an interesting phenomenon.
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Johnny Notes
May 19th, 2006 at 2:57 am
My concern with blogging is how much personal information to include in posts. If I send an e-mail to a few friends, it is likely that they are the only ones who will read it (although obviously many other people have access to the message as it traverses the Internet). With a blog entry however, it is out on the Internet for much the world to potentially view. Consequently, if I write about the new Harmony remote I purchased and detail the home theatre components I’m now controlling with it, am I potentially enticing someone to use freely available Internet resources to locate me and liberate my TV?
brockman
May 19th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
And I guess leaving comments with a link to your site can do the same thing (or any posted internet info for that matter - blog entries, forum posts, etc.). Even though you don’t publish your information, people can look you up in different ways.
I worry less about that. If you had a myspace page or something that was all about where you lived and such - that is more of an opportunity for someone. Not to mention the potential for some sort of identity theft.
Something I can do and weigh the options of is to enable memberships to my site. The technology is right here and I just need to turn it on. It is good for the close-knit community and to add some security, but it really goes against the nature of having a blog. Doesn’t it?
Johnny Notes
May 19th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
I agree that blogs are generally about freely sharing information (you’re doing an excellent job with yours by-the-way) so requiring a login sort of defeats the purpose. However, don’t see much difference between a blog and a MySpace page with regard to privacy/security concerns. Most people probably need not worry if they exercise some common sense when creating either a blog, MySpace page or personal website.
Having said all that, I think I’m personally leaning toward the username/password option for my site. The information I’m posting is mostly only interesting to people who know me, and it would probably be more interesting if I included more personal information. Freely posting this kind of stuff for the world to see makes me go a big rubbery one…
ymmv
brockman
May 23rd, 2006 at 6:07 pm
[Comment ID #13 Will Be Quoted Here]
Big rubbery one?? You need to explain that!
I may go to a login if I get more friends looking at this site. As far as I know, you are the only person that I know of looking at this site. Anyone else?? Make a comment!
And are you saying that I am posting too much info? Which is the real thing I was saying in the original post. Are Blogs primarily a forum for idiots like me to post all kinds of crap in cyberspace that no one cares about?