Thoughts on Blogs as Clubhouses

Reading this selection made me excited for our first project. I like the fact that it was pointed out that what distinguished one blog from another is the passion of the author, and I am up for the challenge of creating my own well-recieved enthusiast blog. I look forward to designing a blog that is focused and engaging. However, I am afraid that my blog will lack one of the main components pointed out in this article, which is personality. I have to hope that my personality and enthusiasm lend themselves to blogging. On a different note, I looked up one of Mr Jalopy's recommended blogs- Mother Tongue Annoyances, only to find out that it no longer exists. This was disappointing, as it sounded like a blog that I would particularly enjoy- I have my very own set of "linguistic pet peeves" which stem from reading and editing many pieces written not only by my peers, but by a wide variety of people. I suppose I will have to find another blogger to sympathize with.

Thoughts on Blood's "Weblogs"

I found this post extremely interesting, as well as highly persuasive. As I said before, I have never been a fan of blogs. However, the history Blood provided was interesting and succinct, and her obvious favorable bias towards blogging did not detract from her writing. I appreciated the history she provided as I did not know much to speak of about blogging. She made me feel as if I have been missing out on a huge portion of popular culture, as well as feeling that I would to become a part of it. I especially liked the quote she included from Ruggerio, "Media is a corporate possession...You cannot participate in the media. Bringing that into the foreground is the first step. The second step is to define the difference between public and audience. An audience is passive; a public is participatory. We need a definition of media that is public in its orientation," as well as how she came back to that quote several times. Her style reminds me of my own in this way. Overall, I am glad that I was given the opportunity to learn about this medium of communication and I found this post interesting and fun to read.

First Post

I have no experience with blogging, weather writing or reading. I've honestly never really been a fan of the idea, but I guess I'll be giving it a try. I have some technical ability when it comes to writing in electronic environments, I have a Facebook and a Myspace and a few years ago I had a Livejournal. I'm also familiar with a few publishing programs that I used for my high school yearbook and newspaper. I don't know if I feel comfortable writing things that people I don't know can read, usually my experience has been limited to "friends" being able to see my posts. I'm not sure what my expectations are for this class, but I'm looking forward to the class. I'm a newly declared writing major and I'm excited about the classes that are available, including this one. In May I suppose I'd like to be more comfortable with the whole blogging experience, and to have produced work that I can be proud of.