Bloggerland

Where is it?
What is it?
Who is it?
Good questions that need to be answered.
Sort of.
If you, the reader, have been following along at home, you know that I've been reading this book called Blogging America, The New Public Sphere by Aaron Barlow:



I'm about half way through, but there are some pretty good things he brings up that I hadn't really given any thought to.
For one thing, I don't know why I started to blog.
I mean one day, I was sitting around, watching Law & Order, when I just decided to sign on and start writing.
I read some forums and stuff but never any real blogs so I had no idea where I was going or what I was getting into or what kind of folks would end up reading what I wrote.
It was sort of an experiment, I wrote and sort of counted the days(months) until I got my first comment.
I didn't have Googlio Analylitico back then so I didn't even know if anyone was reading.
I was just sending stuff into digitaland in no particular direction not aimed at any particular audience.
Not unlike my ham radio days when I'd just send out CQs hoping someone would hear me.
Anyways, it's coming up on two years now and I'm still sending stuff out into digitaland in no particular direction not aimed at any particular audience sort of like my ham radio days when I'd send out CQs hoping someone would hear me.
In other words, I still don't know why I'm doing this.
According to Barlow, blogging is like the new media.
We are moving into a different era with different rules and different values.
I'm not completely sure I like it, being someone who likes to read stuff on real paper, and I'm not completely sure I like being a part of it.
Take my writing for instance.
It's not like how I usually write.
I mean I take liberties all over the page by not using paragraphs or complete sentences.
Even.
In a way, I'm perpetuating bad writing.
Not that I write very well anyways, but let's face it, bad writing is all over the place nowadays and I really shouldn't be helping it along.
At the same time, it's what blogging is all about.
Something new.
Something different.
It's so many different things that it sort of took that book to put it all in some kind of perspective.
I'll get to some other things as I finish the book up but for now what's interesting is the freedom(see above) Bloggerland inspires.
There is no editing, no filtering, as the book calls it.
You get what you get.
What you get, sometimes you get instantaneously.
As in feedback.
The rift between the writer and his audience has disappeared as the writer and reader are now able to create a dialog if they choose to do so.
Great!
Sort of.
Anyways, the book has sort of given me a new perspective on what this blogging thing is all about.
The why folks do it and maybe even why I do it.
Okay, not really.
I know why I do it.
Okay, maybe not.
Will it change the way I do things around The Flat Tire Editorial Offices?
I dunno.
Perhaps.
I mean change is a coming and I want to make sure I got me a ticket.
Or maybe things have already changed, I just don't know it.
If you get a chance though, you should give the book a peruse for it's really about how the world is changing around us.
That for sure, is worth a look.