Blog Sub Culture
One of the great challenges for “blogging” today is the presuppositions and misconceptions that people have on the idea.
In the late 1990’s, I and a good friend explored creating a newsletter, a paper newsletter that is, which could be interactive, artsy, and representative of our community (Ann Arbor, MI at the time). Our vision was a publication that could chronicle lives and become a voice unto a specific niche of local peoples. While it seemed a bit lofty at the time, when I look at the nature of online media today, I don’t think we were too out there. Not in our idea at least.
Our venture never took off despite months of brain dumps, sketches, outlines, and of course no funding. We didn’t know much about the Web at that time and blogging was hardly even a whisper then. But often I look back to that time because I see now how blogging may have been a silver bullet for us then, but at the time it was too infantile to even be on our radar.
Now, if vacuum bloggers like Ed Vielmetti have been blogging since 1999, then we must not have been the only ones tapping in to this emerging sub culture which today has become a key marketing and networking tool for businesses. I refer to this circumstance as a pivotal point in our race’s history because it demonstrates the core essence behind the idea of blogging - that is, to reach out, express, and communicate
When I use the term blogging, I am suggesting the use of interactive web applications, often referred to today as Web 2.0, for marketing and networking purposes. But others might limit use of that term specifically to use of a blog. Others might equate that to an online journal or diary. Blogging is one of those terms that must be defined for the context with which it is being used.
Blogging is nothing new. It’s simply a new medium. It doesn’t replace an old way of doing things. It enhances the conventional. Blogging is about evolution, not technology.
