Jill Walker (jill/txt.. Weblog) and Torill Mortensen (Thinking with my fingers. Weblog) used a blog (blogonblog. Weblog) in the process of researching and writing the article ‘Blogging thoughts: personal publication as an online research tool’. (Mortensen & Walker). The following extract from this article is the catalyst for my final assignment for Networked Media and informs my decision to present my ‘essay’ as a Weblog.
Weblogs are densely interlinked. This anchors blogs in the public arena, as part of a communal discourse. Posts to a blog can be very short and unpretentious. The threshold for publishing a single post is very low. This allows single, small, insignificant ideas to be expressed and formulated. Sometimes these thoughts are left as they are. A paragraph is enough and there is no more needed. Other times, the ideas grow. Someone links their site to the first post, comments on it, and a conversation grows forth. The initial post, or follow-ups, are linked to a web site or a newspaper article or something else. Links are like roots, tendrils, reaching out between fragments, creating a context for bits and pieces that at first glance may seem to be unconnected fragments.
Mortensen and Walker. p259
So what is blogging?. Evan Williams, co-creator of the blogging tool Blogger, defines the blog concept as: ‘Frequency, Bevity, and Personality’ (Turnbull). The word ‘Blog ‘was coined by Peter Mierholz in 1999 – the same year that the genre began a ‘speedy growth’ (Mortensen & Walker 254). Rebecca Blood wrote “Weblogs: a history and perspective.” Rebecca’s Pocket. 9/7/2000, an acclaimed article on the history of blogs in 2000, while the first academic article on weblogs, ‘Blog this: digital renaissance’ Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and Their Impact. Cambridge, MA: MIT. February 2002,was published by Henry Jenkins.
