Another day, another blog. Which, if you really think about it, is a weird phenomenon. The whole “blog”, “weblog”, “journal” trend if you will is definatly something odd. Most of you know I’ve been writing in this journal almost as long as I’ve had my cable modem, which is a good deal of my time here at SCAD. In that time (lets say in the past year) this journal thing has launched so far beyond “popular” that nearly everyone has one. The “blog” has replaced the “self-centered homepage”. You know the kind I’m talking about… “this is me, this is my dog, I enjoy cookies”. Now, I’m the first to admit that I’m certainly not original in having one, nor was I one of the “first” to have one, but I am glad I do. It gives me an opportunity to vent a little and I like that. But why does everyone else have one? I was curious. Luckily, my answers can be found, linked together, on one page. That page is the main Blogger.com homepage. Usually I don’t go there. I have a program called BlogBuddy so I can update, change and post my entries from my desktop. But, I had to change an internal journal setting so I took a look. What I found was kind of creepy.
There’s the usually reasons for a journal: I wanted to vent, I wanted to tell the world something, I wanted to report on things, I wanted to stay in touch with family, that sort of thing. Then there was something else. At least 4 very buisness oriented reports saying how profitable blogs can be, how they’re “where the real action is”, how they can “make the web work for you” by marketing yourself. The sickest thing I saw, and I’m sure it’s innocent (it just seems like a bad idea to me) is The Peer-to-Peer Review Project. This actually made me feel ill. It’s a site where “reviews” get to comment on your personal life in a movie critic type way. They’re not commenting on your life persay, but your writting ability, your “emotional content”, your “style” of writting, things like that. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have posted about having a really shitty day and have someone tell me it wasn’t “convincing.” What the fuck is that about?
We’re all skating a really thin line. A line between trend/marketing device/personal expresion. Our personal expression has become popular, and that’s a good thing. More power to the people is always a good thing. You guys know I’m all about personal expression. But when will the day come when we get blog related spam in our email instead of regular spam. Something like “express you ideas in a brand new journal” instead of the usual “increase traffic to your site” crap. I don’t know. We’ve certainly pasted the point of no return. Kids in jr-high have their own domain names for heaven’s sake. They have journals and they can use them to talk about their lives. Didn’t it use to be just “us nerds” who did that shit in high-school? Apparently its trendy now.
I hope, I really do, that all this won’t back fire. That in another year we won’t have marketing based blogs. That things like Blogger and Live Journal won’t be completely pay services. That individuals won’t sell out and place banner ads all over their journals in order to make an easy buck from the marketing. I hope, I really do.
With that I’ll leave you with a few links. These are what the professionals are saying about our “hobby.”
Weblogs Make the Web Work for You – Buisness 2.0
Far East Economic Review – Where the party is.
That is all.
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