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International Webloggers Day
To celebrate the International Webloggers Day today, I will follow the suggestions given by the IntWel's website and answer the questions they have posted a while ago. Check out the International Webloggers Day here.
Why did you start blogging, how long have you been doing so, and why have you continued?
I know I started blogging to vent some ideas and opinions that nobody in my family or in my group of friends cared to hear. For the two years that I have been blogging I have often asked myself why. I suppose the main reason is still the same, not many people in my real world care to hear all I have to say about everything, sort of like singing in the shower. The difference is this is a very populated shower and the relationships that arise are really different from everything you could have imagined not so many years ago.
Blogging is also a great way of keeping up, of not letting yourself go, of keeping your brain and your ideas alert. Exchanging ideas and being aware of those others who think differently from you is great, it puts us in our place.
Blogging has contributed also to make the world a smaller place and it brings people together. From web counters we learn that we are visited by people from countries we never even heard of before! How great is this medium that gives totally diverse people the same language and the ability to communicate. Ultimately, bloggers are those who just need to communicate.
Do you think webloggers have a lot of power? If so, what, and how can it be harnessed?
The main power, in my opinion, is the power of the individual. Even when we vote, we do not express ourselves so completely as when we air something on the internet. True, our vote elects those who will lead our country, but it is nothing more than a number. Also true, the number of readers of our pages can be very minute and insignificant, but it certainly is more than the number of people who hear what we have to say by the coffee machine or at the friday evening bar.
The most frightening prospect is loosing this freedom. Are institutions and companies going to invade blogging territory? I'm sure they will once they smell the money and the power. Hopefully individuals will fight for their recently acquired right.
Why do you think weblogging has become so popular?
May be blogging became so popular because our "democracy" is an imperfect system. May be blogging fills that communication gap that today's political systems don't alow. It also fills the gap between readers and the "old time" media. Tvs, radios, newspapers are too coded, their language has may be lost the spontaneity we can find in blogs. A blog is a personal account and I am aware of that when I read one, I know this is one person's opinion. But isn't it everything one person's opinion? May be the traditional media should be more honest with their audiences, blogs are many times more credible than the news (the tsunami for instance).
Blogs come to help individuals offering what was not there before. for instance: travel guides are great, but how do I know that they are real, how do I know that restaurant is the place to go, how do I know the restaurant didn't pay for the publicity in the travel guide? Travel blogs are just great, they will tell us what travel guides never will (just read Ian's Crete Diary to see what I mean, I can't help but quoting him: "Well, like I said, there's always a catch - we approached a very impressive looking complex right on the sea, but then drove right on past it, coasted alongside a deserted stretch of the beach, then turned right - back away from the water and further inland - up toward some nondescript buildings on a road with nothing else on. These were our apartments."...)