by Don Harkey
The term "blog" carries a certain connotation. When I ask people if they follow any blogs, they typically chuckle. Blogging has a kind of "coffee shop" internet cafe image that keeps a lot of people away. Its a similar phenomena to people who stay away from Facebook because of foo-foo features like "poke" and the more earnest "super-poke". Some people just start with a misconception about what a blog is.
Part of the problem is that a "blog" is not very defined. When you purchase a newspaper, you pretty much know what you are going to get. You expect professional writers who follow some standard. You expect a somewhat familiar format (you can open the "InsertCityHere Times" and expect to be able to flip to the Sports section). Blogs aren't like this.
In Springfield Missouri alone, there are likely over a hundred blogs (for a list of Springfield Blogs, go to http://www.sgfblogs.com). Many of them are kinda like personal diaries with people simply reporting on their life. Others are more like independent media sites with coverage of local events and opinion pages. Still others are targeted toward a specific demographic or interest group. Most are written by a single author while others use multiple writers or guest writers.
The mistake that people make is that they form an idea of what a blog is simply by what they have heard or from an experience on a specific blog. Some of the most popular blogs aren't even called blogs. I follow www.huskerpedia.com to get links to stories about my beloved Huskers. I have never seen the site call itself a blog, but it essentially is.
My point today is simple. If you follow blogs (you're reading one now, so I think we've already broken the ice!), tell your friends about the good ones. Share stories that you've seen and like. As the media transforms itself, blogs will become more and more of a great source of information.
And go ahead and try a cappuccino if you haven't already!
.bmp)
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Greetings from a fellow Springfield blogger! Well, I live in Nixa, but yeah. I recently listed 'blogs' as my favorite reading material on myspace and that got a few comments from people. I tell them that I would rather read about a stranger's life 5 states away than a fictional character because it is real life. I can make a connection! Can't wait to continue reading your blog by the way. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tina! Which blog do you write?
ReplyDeleteI know I'm a little late on the game on this one (I had a busy week), but I just spent two days at a Technology in Education conference, and it was so invigorating. For our next library conference in the fall, I've put in a proposal to spend a session just exploring the blogs, RSS feeds, and social media groups that are good to follow to stay up-to-date on the profession. The really exciting thing is that so much of this technology conference focused on social media and so many of the school librarians were there. If librarians are beginning to become immersed in this type of media, so can businesses....they will have to! =)
ReplyDelete