Blog 15 (A Blog About, Well, Blogs)

The internet is a medium with many other media within. The internet has advanced immensly since I remember using it. The funny thing about the internet is that I get so frustrated when my page doesn't load right away. I guess I have no patience. Now, I think back to the days of dialup, the internet was way slower than it is now. I have high speed internet right now. Even then, I remember still having little patience with it, though. One thing I like about the internet nowadays is something that is referred to as Web 2.0 or social media. If you're not familiar with the term, I know you're familiar with the concept. In fact, we're using it right now. I remember talking about this in class a few weeks back, and I have decided to look into a certain type of social media: blogging (note the irony).

A blog is a contraction of the word weblog. Depending upon the type of blog, it my just have a specific name. There are also vlogs (video blogs) phlogs (photo blogs) and microblogs (think Twitter). The content of blogs can vary. Most blogs are known as talking about the news and current events, but some use them as online diaries, sometimes referred to as personal blogs. Honestly, when we were first assigned to blog, that's the only type of blog I was familiar with. I used to have one that I updated constantly about random things that really had no point but to share stories with friends. My blogging skills have since improved and I have began to hyperlink a lot more during my blogs.

Blogs can be a great means of communication but they can also take place of the accurate and unbiased news. Blogs are available for reporters to put their opinions in their news stories. Since reporters are taught to leave their opinion out of their writing, I'll bet reporters really appreciate the opportunity to blog. As for the readers of these blogs, I think that people take these blogs for granted and actually think of them as the actual news, especially when they don't know they're actually reading a blog.

With all these blogging sites, I sometimes get confused. There's Blogger, the one we're using now, and there's Blogspot. They're both owned by Google, so what is the point of having two sites? Plus, many other sites have blogs available for its members to use. Facebook has notes, which I think are no different than blogs. So, as you can see blogs are all over the internet world and it doesn't look like we're getting rid of them anytime soon.