Yesterday I submitted a 6 page research paper on blogs and I thought it only appropriate to write a blog entry on it. The prompt was similar to any research project; tell the history of blogs, where did they come from? Compare blogs to Usenet... The overall direction of the paper was to determine whether blogs illustrate empowerment and increased availability of information, or do they illustrate the avalanche of gossip and inaccurate or useless information on the Net? Considering that I have had this blog for the last 4 years, I thought that this was the best topic to choose for my research paper.
Blogs first came onto the scene in the mid 1990s with OpenDiary and later followed by LiveJournal and our beloved Blogger (later bought by Google in 2003). Usenet, for those of you who don't know is an online discussion program where users can submit articles and respond/post new articles in response to those articles. Basically it's a very early form of blogging that gives way less control to the users but allows for some great discussions on a global scale. Blogs are useful in all areas of life, from classrooms to large companies to a mini journal of the life of a 23 year old, 7 year plan college student. There are thousands of inaccurate blogs out there and yes, many quickly become "an avalanche of gossip" but I truly believe that as long as people have something to say, blogs with exist and thrive (well, until something better comes out...).
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