ders and writers. People include the commentary and the original article in new weblogs, and so on and so on until the topic and content itself is maxed out.

The creation of blogs has skyrocketed in the last two years. According to Technorati, a San Francisco based website dedicated to tracking, researching and highlighting “what’s new” in “citizen media” (the blogosphere), as of August 2006, statistics are showing that there are over 55 million blogs. The survey began in November 2002 and shows that the blogosphere is 100 times bigger than a mere 3 ye

Is that a question? The act of blogging or, putting out personal, private, community or sub-cultural information, thoughts, opinions and communication for the masses is by no means a new idea. People have been forcing their opinions down other people’s throats since the dawn of man and the development of language and the written word. Beginning with writing on stone tablature to record accounting of goods and services to monks scribbling scripture to the invention of typesetting and the newspaper to radio to television to the Internet, human beings have wanted to express themselves verbally to a mass audience in order to effect change or simply stir things up. Blogging allows for the small, insignificant individual to bring to the world wide web his or her thoughts, musings and beliefs for better or worse.

The benefits of this not entirely untapped genre are bountiful. There are no editors. There are no rules for grammar, spelling, biased or unbiased viewpoints. There are no (so far) corporate magnates controlling the content of the Blogosphere. Ideas may be presented at the whim of the author; there is no red tape or bureaucracy to navigate through or around. There doesn’t need to be any sugarcoating. It is instantaneous, live and collaborative. A person can respond to the another person’s seemingly frivolous diatribe on the benefits of a cheese sandwich and, boom!, a communication is born that can spiral out of control, spinning to the far corners of cyberspace or simply lie dormant or dead, never to be discussed again. There is no schedule. No waiting. Perfect for our day and age of get it now, while it’s hot because once it’s cool, no one will care. Radio, TV and newspapers creep at a turtle’s pace compared with blogging. It is a system of checks and balances on the Internet itself. Content put out into the public consciousness can be responded to instantly. The user controls it and gives validation to each person’s personal opinion. This social phenomenon connects the world by the mere fact of communication. Author X writes a post. Reader Z disagrees. Reader Z comments, instantly responding to the ‘authority’ of the author X. Reader Z’s comment starts a new train of thoughts and opinions among 15 other readers and writers. People include the commentary and the original article in new weblogs, and so on and so on until the topic and content itself is maxed out.

The creation of blogs has skyrocketed in the last two years. According to Technorati, a San Francisco based website dedicated to tracking, researching and highlighting “what’s new” in “citizen media” (the blogosphere), as of August 2006, statistics are showing that there are over 55 million blogs. The survey began in November 2002 and shows that the blogosphere is 100 times bigger than a mere 3 ye

ed to express themselves verbally to a mass audience in order to effect change or simply stir things up. Blogging allows for the small, insignificant individual to bring to the world wide web his or her thoughts, musings and beliefs for better or worse.

The benefits of this not entirely untapped genre are bountiful. There are no editors. There are no rules for grammar, spelling, biased or unbiased viewpoints. There are no (so far) corporate magnates controlling the content of the Blogosphere. Ideas may be presented at the whim of the author; there is no red tape or bureaucracy to navigate through or around. There doesn’t need to be any sugarcoating. It is instantaneous, live and collaborative. A person can respond to the another person’s seemingly frivolous diatribe on the benefits of a cheese sandwich and, boom!, a communication is born that can spiral out of control, spinning to the far corners of cyberspace or simply lie dormant or dead, never to be discussed again. There is no schedule. No waiting. Perfect for our day and age of get it now, while it’s hot because once it’s cool, no one will care. Radio, TV and newspapers creep at a turtle’s pace compared with blogging. It is a system of checks and balances on the Internet itself. Content put out into the public consciousness can be responded to instantly. The user controls it and gives validation to each person’s personal opinion. This social phenomenon connects the world by the mere fact of communication. Author X writes a post. Reader Z disagrees. Reader Z comments, instantly responding to the ‘authority’ of the author X. Reader Z’s comment starts a new train of thoughts and opinions among 15 other readers and writers. People include the commentary and the original article in new weblogs, and so on and so on until the topic and content itself is maxed out.

The creation of blogs has skyrocketed in the last two years. According to Technorati, a San Francisco based website dedicated to tracking, researching and highlighting “what’s new” in “citizen media” (the blogosphere), as of August 2006, statistics are showing that there are over 55 million blogs. The survey began in November 2002 and shows that the blogosphere is 100 times bigger than a mere 3 ye

o red tape or bureaucracy to navigate through or around. There doesn’t need to be any sugarcoating. It is instantaneous, live and collaborative. A person can respond to the another person’s seemingly frivolous diatribe on the benefits of a cheese sandwich and, boom!, a communication is born that can spiral out of control, spinning to the far corners of cyberspace or simply lie dormant or dead, never to be discussed again. There is no schedule. No waiting. Perfect for our day and age of get it now, while it’s hot because once it’s cool, no one will care. Radio, TV and newspapers creep at a turtle’s pace compared with blogging. It is a system of checks and balances on the Internet itself. Content put out into the public consciousness can be responded to instantly. The user controls it and gives validation to each person’s personal opinion. This social phenomenon connects the world by the mere fact of communication. Author X writes a post. Reader Z disagrees. Reader Z comments, instantly responding to the ‘authority’ of the author X. Reader Z’s comment starts a new train of thoughts and opinions among 15 other readers and writers. People include the commentary and the original article in new weblogs, and so on and so on until the topic and content itself is maxed out.

The creation of blogs has skyrocketed in the last two years. According to Technorati, a San Francisco based website dedicated to tracking, researching and highlighting “what’s new” in “citizen media” (the blogosphere), as of August 2006, statistics are showing that there are over 55 million blogs. The survey began in November 2002 and shows that the blogosphere is 100 times bigger than a mere 3 ye

o, TV and newspapers creep at a turtle’s pace compared with blogging. It is a system of checks and balances on the Internet itself. Content put out into the public consciousness can be responded to instantly. The user controls it and gives validation to each person’s personal opinion. This social phenomenon connects the world by the mere fact of communication. Author X writes a post. Reader Z disagrees. Reader Z comments, instantly responding to the ‘authority’ of the author X. Reader Z’s comment starts a new train of thoughts and opinions among 15 other readers and writers. People include the commentary and the original article in new weblogs, and so on and so on until the topic and content itself is maxed out.

The creation of blogs has skyrocketed in the last two years. According to Technorati, a San Francisco based website dedicated to tracking, researching and highlighting “what’s new” in “citizen media” (the blogosphere), as of August 2006, statistics are showing that there are over 55 million blogs. The survey began in November 2002 and shows that the blogosphere is 100 times bigger than a mere 3 ye

ders and writers. People include the commentary and the original article in new weblogs, and so on and so on until the topic and content itself is maxed out.

The creation of blogs has skyrocketed in the last two years. According to Technorati, a San Francisco based website dedicated to tracking, researching and highlighting “what’s new” in “citizen media” (the blogosphere), as of August 2006, statistics are showing that there are over 55 million blogs. The survey began in November 2002 and shows that the blogosphere is 100 times bigger than a mere 3 years ago. From March 2004- June 2006, the amount of blogs doubled every 5-7 months. Since June 2006, blogs are doubling every 200 days. This breaks down to 2 new blogs being created every second of every day, somewhere in the world and being updated over 18 times a second. That’s an incredible amount of information being traded, responded to, recreated and linked back and forth. This is the future of the Internet and it’s happening right now. It is no longer a tool to submit to and look at or observe, it has become an interactive tool to express opinions, thoughts and a democratic account of one’s existence.

“In a sense, Blogs function like peer-review journals do in the academic world, but there’s a key difference. The distribution of articles in academic journals is largely controlled by a publishing cartel that charges exorbitant amounts for subscriptions, which are subsidized by the institutions that can afford them. Think of it as a socialist model for information exchange. With Blogs, however, anybody with an Internet connection can engage anybody else. Concepts are presented, attacked, sliced, diced, added to and subtracted from, mangled, massaged and molded until what is left is an amalgam of the finest we as an online society has to offer. For the digitally well-endowed, it’s akin to free-market capitalism, with information as its currency. And not only do we all get to watch, we can join in.” Adam Peneberg, “Like it or Not Blogs Have Legs”, Wired News.