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.”
