The Blogosphere

I truly thought I'd heard just about everything that was going on with computers. Then I picked up a USA Today and there was an entire page devoted to the Blogoshere. Yes, you heard right, the Blogoshere.

The blogoshpere, according to Janet Kornblum of the USA Today is a chaotic, disorganized universe of diary-style Web pages called Web logs - blogs for short. Truthfully, I think this is one I can do without, but please don't let me influence you.

If you haven't heard, the Blogosphere is where we go blogging! Blogging, appears to be the newest trend in chronicling life as it happens. It's basically instant one-way communication. You post your thoughts to the web whenever the urge strikes. However, unlike Instant Messenger, you do not have to listen to the opinions of others in exchange - like a monologue or a diary. It's really an electronic journal for the world.

Being a computer expert that was behind the times, I decided to visit some of the blogs suggested by Kornblum. www.quarlo.com and www.dirtdirt.com/669 were my first stops. These are photographic blogs. The concept here is that a picture is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, I seemed to need some of those missing thousand words to understand (my husband tells me I'm far too logical).

Instapundit.com is a diary type log, you know - a day in the life of… Here Glenn Reynold talks about whatever is one his mind. Included was a trip to his "Insta-Grandmother's" 89th Birthday Party. Andrewsullivan.com reminded me of a radio talk show minus the audio.

This fad is not just for the little guys. www.msnbc.com just replaced its highly successful discussion boards (that boast of over 600,000 posts per day) with "Weblog Central." It posts its own blogs and provides a weekly list of links called "Best of Blogs." Do a search on Google for Weblog Central. It's a great place to start your journey.

If you're thinking that this is some obscure art form sure to disappear into the black hole of the Internet, think again. AOL will be introducing AOL Journals soon, their own form of blogging that will be updated by Instant Message.

A new fad has arisen.

If you're still confused about blogs and the blogoshere, I think my husband's definition will help. A blog is a webpage where writer's "blah, blah, blah, blah, blog."

Welcome to the blogoshere. Where is Captain Kirk when you need him?