Blog Hopping Part 1

Five Blogs I looked at:

http://www.wibsite.com/wiblog/dull/comments.php?d=1054594792&s=75

http://www.saveroe.com/blog/archive.php?month=June&year=2004

http://blog.johnkerry.com/cgi-bin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1112

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/dolphins/content/custom/blogs/Dolphins/archives/000138.html

http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog/


I went into this thinking most blogs would have a professional feel to them and weren't just a place for "journal entry" type logs. I found otherwise. Most blogs, apparently, are not an organized forum of information; a place where a person can become updated on someone else's thoughts and trains of thinking; and be connected to a myriad of resources in addition. Some blogs seemed so dull and disorgainzed, I couldn't figure out what the point was (like the first URL I have listed above...maybe my first clue was the title it had:"The dullest blog in the world.") It was just one random post after another.

Thinking about incentives to post a blog, I realized that most that I looked at seemed to have a reason behind them....be it for professional development, or for simply having a place that you can express your opinion in hopes to be heard (lik the second URL above, where the guy posting is ranting almost politically about our current national issues).

I personally liked the blogs with a lot of information, yet with a lot of organization. I like the little calendars showing when posts occured. I like the links to other information. I like the list of who the particular blogger deams worthy of following. It's helpful to know what others are doing, reading, and thinking. I do not like blogs that are simply one post after another of seemingly random thoughts. This is like the third URL post which claims it is the "Official Kerry/Edwards blog." It's just a bunch of people chatting...I wouldn't even consider it a blog.

This brings me to a thoguth of where the line is drawn of blog and threaded discussion. What some people call a blog, I would just call a threaded discussion. Again, like the Kerry/Edwards blog. To me a blog is more than just a record of thoughts or discussions; it is an attempt at making connections that might not have been made before, perhaps like a portal of some kind connecting one person's thought to another's. I'm going to have to think about this some more, obviously, and hope to have come to more clarity by next week's post.