New Experiences

At the beginning of this quarter when I had first heard we were going to be writing in blogs it was a shock to me because I never really have been associated with them for academic reasons. I was never really interested in them because I thought they were just about technology and politics. Also another generalization I had was that it was only really nerds who wrote in them and had no other life than that. I guess that the only blogs I was ever on was a high school sports forum that talked about all the different sports, but it was really big to me during football season to see what people would say about us. At the end of the quarter now I realize that blogs are written in by journalists who tell big news stories, along with some other big name reporters who have good knowledge about other major topics in news. So in my mind weblogs are used for news, enhancing writers’ abilities, and just chatting about certain topics.

Blogs can be great mediums between television and newspapers that you can read articles faster and they will get you to the point of the topic or story you want. “We think of a medium as the thing that delivers content. But the delivered content is a medium in itself. Content is just a medium for interaction between people” (Rushkoff, 2000). I think that Rushkoff is saying that blogs are a way for people to discuss topics and debate their sides. Like he said that “Content is King” (Rushkoff, 2000), because with no content in blogs you have no conversation and therefore you will have no blogs. Now blogs are a very important thing is peoples lives because it can provide them with the information that they want and find out new information; for example sports blogs because you never know if someone gets caught for drugs or had possession of weapons and had been suspended. So blogs are a good medium between television and news papers, but remember if there is not content then there will be no blog.

Another way blogs are useful is that they can enhance your writing and can help you with not making the same mistakes as usual. Now I am sure that there are some people who just go around on blogs just looking to correct people’s mistakes in their writing which can help a new struggling blogger/writer become better overall. Now some people think that blogs add nothing to the web, “That they contribute to the poor writing quality the internet suffers” (Talbot, 2001). Which I think is true, because people who write in blogs are like people who chat on AIM, which is AOL Instant Message, by not using grammatically correct forms of words and have many sentence problems. But on the other hand Rebecca Blood says that blogs make people better writers because in her book she says that, “It’s easy to write poorly, but it’s hard to write poorly everyday” (Blood, 2002). Now I think that if you write the same everyday I don’t see how you would get any better by writing the same way. I would have to agree with Talbot when he says that it allows shitty writers to get their bad grammar on the net. They enhance writers’ abilities by enhancing their thoughts and have them become more aware of their surroundings and what people are talking about around them.

Blogs allow you to just talk about whatever you want which is the neat thing about them. You can find blogs about any subject or topic you want. There are people out there who are experiencing some of the same things you are in which you can connect with them in that spectrum. But sometimes I think that they can be too long which can turn my attention to them off and on to something else. They can give some pointless information and will just get you lost in what it is they want to say. But overall I think that they are a cool think to get information and other helpful things done.

The blogging experience was fun. I learned many new things about the web and learned how to use blogs as a tool for information. This was definitely helpful to me so I can gather resources from other things rather than the normal search engines. My view has taken a total 360 degree turn and now I know some of the main reasons people use them and they are to receive some type of news or information, enhance people as writers, or for just an occasional chat about whatever topics are on your mind or ones that you’re interested in.