Last week, Alistair Reece wrote that he is stuck in a rut and looking for a way to break a log jam that keeps him for completing writing projects he has started.
His plan? “So here is my crazy idea, I am just going to write whatever random boozy thoughts pop into my head each and every day for the rest of July, including when I am in Florida on vacation.”
A couple of days before, in his twice-a-month email dispatch Jay Hoffman at The History of the Web pointed to a earlier post about the evolution of blogging. He tells the story in terms of generations (somewhat analogous to something Jeff Alworth wrote last week).
– “In their earliest days, webloggers stood as gatekeepers to the web’s ever-growing well of content. Each day, these URL pioneers would post a few new links and sprinkle in their own commentary. Blogs acted as a signpost for web users, and following a few key blogs was enough to keep track of just about everything new on the web.”
– “But on the fringes, a new type of blog was emerging. The personal blog. These sites ditched the curated links and focused exclusively on commentary. Bloggers used their site to chronicle their personal journey, from the almost boring and banal to the weird and wonderful. This new type of blog was less an alternative media source and more akin to an online journal or diary. And these writers saw themselves not as gatekeepers to the web, but as sharers of their own identity.”
– “Blogger might of brought a ton of people to blogging, but Moveable Type refined the idea of what exactly a blog even was. With more flexible tools came a wider variety of sites. Traditional publishers set up blogs to gather eyewitness reports. Hobbyists documented tricks of their trade. Fan groups reported on pop culture and TV and tech without needing to appeal to a mainstream audience. Even political candidates turned to blogs to engage their constituency.”
– “Blogging, as a community and a practice, continues to be refined to this day thanks to the dedication of web users everywhere. But its sharpest point was made the day Mena Trott decided that a blog could be more than just some text on a page. It could be one of a kind.”
It would seem expectations are always changing. I think that an exercise that Stephanie Grant proposed last month during her presentation (“Telling Your Brand Story on Social Media: How to Connect and Stand Out”) at the Crafted for Action conference in Atlanta might provide direction. She asked attendees to fill in the blanks: “We exist to [do what] for [who] so they can [desired outcome or emotion].”
That’s Grant on the left, contemplating a pint and a half pint of cask ale at Hogshead Brewing in 2022 when she and her husband, Dominick, spent a few days in Denver.
I’m not entirely comfortable with that history of the web log. Dave Winer was linking and giving personal opinion as early as 1994. And “curate”? 2012 much? The sad winnowing based on supposed self-affirmed maître d’ status comes far later. At the outset it was just about everything – and the ensuing chronological discussion in the comments. None of which applies, just to be clear, to the substance of your very well made point. But, as you so often say, know your strengths… and these may be mine. Possibly Ex: http://scripting.com/davenet/
Funny that you should point to Winer. I was drawn to blogging because of my interest in rss as an alternative to email newsletters (funny how those have returned to being he preferred form of push), which of course led to Winer. I think I even messed around with a platform he developed. But WordPress proved to be easier (at least for me).
I might be misreading the post, but I think the author was saying the term “weblog” dated to 1997-ish, not the practice of posting links with commentary, which definitely predated that — it literally was something that sites like Yahoo and Excite _hired_ people to do in the mid 1990s, and I worked for two museums during that time that did the same thing on their websites.
Thanks, Bill. This makes me want to go back and watch Halt and Catch Fire for the third time.