When blogs first came around, I didn’t get it. At all. I mean, who other than self-important, self-absorbed people would sit and write about themselves? I made a livejournal blog at some point, which I promptly forgot about, then I made a new one (forgot the password for the old one) because people around me kept poking me, telling me to create one. “It’s fun!” they said, and I thought “What is?” If I wanted to write I’d just write. If I wanted other people to read, I’d send it to them. It felt like a pointless way to pretend to be an author. Most of the time, nobody read what you’d written anyway. Then I started writing myself, and as I kept going, I realized it wasn’t that bad at all but I was still a little hesitant about the concept…
There is the ever present concern of forgetting that the public is there and that things you say can be used against you. Corporations google employee hopefuls and find their blogs and decide that they don’t want people “of that character” in their companies, and I’m sure there are many other variations of the “the private in the public” becoming a tangible problem. Some argue that people are willingly putting their entire lives out there for anyone interested, while others argue that privacy is a growing concern that mustn’t be taken lightly.
Be that as it may, I grew quite fond of blogging and even set up a blog on my own domain name fairly quickly after I got into it. I enjoyed writing without a real purpose, and I enjoyed reading what others wrote. Time limited my presence in the blogosphere (I can’t say that word with a straight face, though, but give me a few years) but for the most part, I found myself spending quite a bit of time reading what others had to say.
February 28th, 2006, I wrote a response to an article on Chicago Tribune (story long since removed) in which the author declared blogs a “dying concept”. They didn’t get it either, though their web site has, in the left menu, a link to “blogs” so I reckon they’ve changed their minds in the 2½ years that have passed since. In their defense, I believe they were looking at blogs from a pure business perspective, though I think their declaration has failed there as well (no figures to back that statement, so don’t quote me on that one).
The point of blogs that I saw back then is pretty similar to how I see it now. I still think of blogs as a way to express what you wouldn’t normally be able to express, more in-depth than you would normally be able to be without getting long-winded and boring in the eyes of those around you (after all, with blogs they can simply stop reading when they feel like it, but with letters or in discussions, they don’t have that option without being at least a bit rude).
Conclusively, I’d like to see some of you people write again. Those of you who haven’t blogged in months, and who think noone’s wondering how you’re doing. I am, sincerely wondering (Erwin, you there and alive still? 
). I may not comment on a lot of you people’s posts, but I read them, and I am happy to hear from you, even if it’s as “unpersonal” as by passively reading your blogs.