There were some text messages that we didn't have a chance to get to last night on the programme. Dan, who identified himself as "man who had been asleep for six months" asked what blogging was.
Don't worry Dan, blogging is one of those things that either consumes all of your free time or you don't have a clue as to what it is. A study in US in January found that you would have been joined by 60% of Americans, so you're in good company.
It's really hard to sum up what blogs are in a couple of sentences and anyone who tries falls prey to such gross oversimplification and a lot of stereotypes. I remember during the UK elections that a certain columnist dismissively described blogs as 'quotidian diaries'.
Well, yeah, there are thousands if not millions of weblogs out there that are not much more than online journals full of the small details of everyday life.
But as we're trying to show on the programme, there are also soldiers capturing both the tedium and terror of war. There are activists in Iran and China who find that weblogs are one of the few means of free expression that they have. There are lots of techno whizzes writing about the next greatest thing. There are gourmands talking about their favourite recipes.
Basically, weblogs are a type of website. They have periodic posts in reverse chronological order. Some take comments. Some don't. But they are dead easy to publish, and they have a system so that bloggers can easily link to the posts of each other.
But don't get too caught in the technology because that's not the main appeal. As a matter of fact, it's down to the fact that the technology is transparent to most folks that makes them so appealing.
No, it's really not about the technology at all. For all of the stereotypes people want to throw around about bloggers or computer people in general being anti-social, locked away in dark rooms bathed only in the artificial glow of their computer screens, blogging is at its core a social activity.
If you have an interest, a hobby, or an obsession, you can find a blog about that, and not just a blog but another person who is connected by a network (the internet) to a network of people who also have that same interest.
For instance, I have a friend who is into vintage radios and bakelite cameras. Pretty obscure stuff she says. I did a quick search on the blog search engine Technorati and instantly found bloggers into all things bakelite.
And we got another text message that blogs are "the preserve of those not good enough to write". Well, all I'll say to that, is that I wish that I had the book deals that some of the best bloggers have landed!
The world of blogs aka the blogosphere can be a bit daunting at first because there are so many of them, tens of millions and growing every day.
But what I've found is that after discovering a few very talented bloggers who talk about issues I'm interested in, they lead me to discover other bloggers.
Thanks for the text messages and questions. Below are links from the show last night and some other useful blogs links.
Send us your favourite blogs and questions using the form below, and we'll keep you updated on guests we'll have on next week's show.
Rhod Sharp and Kevin Anderson blog for Up All Night
EMAIL US WITH YOUR COMMENTS
EMAIL US WITH YOUR COMMENTS
All personal information supplied is held securely by the BBC and its partners and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. Your details will not be used for any other service.
 |
||||||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|
Audio help Text us now 85058 |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
||
|
|
|
|
|||
 | | The 5 livewire Influence what we do on 5 live. It's where you make the news |
