Week 2: Blogs and Blogging

My first exposure to blogs didn't happen until they emerged as a story covered by traditional media. At that time, my impression was that blogs were largely forums for self-indulgence (and if my memory serves right, this was how they were often depicted in the stories that wrote about blogs as an emerging trend). Rebecca Blood's article suggests that this impression might actually have reflected the predominant mode of blogging at that time. I know that I was quite content to ignore blogs, blogging and bloggers.

 A few short years later and I am a regular, if not fanatical, blog reader. I read technology and library blogs to keep up to date with what's going on in the library world. I read a variety of blogs that have emerged from traditional media sites. And, when I'm forced to consciously think about my use of blogs as I have been this week, I realize that blogs have taken an ever-increasing place in the content that I read for interest and enjoyment.

Two big things that have made blogs attractive to me as a reader:

1. Paid bloggers - I enjoy the regular posting by bloggers who blog for a living. This isn't to say that I don't enjoy blogs written by people as a hobby, or out of the goodness of their own heart, but I do like the promise of regular new content that comes with professional bloggers.

 2. Blogs with a specific, narrow interest - Some blogs are very narrowly focused on a small area of interest, and sometimes that narrow focus is exactly what I'm looking for (and what is usually harder to find from traditional media).