Listics

Surfage yields wonderful things…

Jorn Barger’s original definition of a ‘weblog’ reads as follows:

"A
weblog is a webpage where a weblogger ‘logs’ all the other webpages she
finds interesting. The format is normally to add the newest entry at
the top of the page, so that repeat visitors can catch up by simply
reading down the page…"

The
weblog format simmered for a few years, growing in popularity but
escaping widespread notice until the arrival of a weblogging service
called Blogger. Consisting of little more than a title field and a text
field, Blogger was simple enough for everyone to use, free, and
popular. Thus empowered, the format grew to the point where there are
some four million blogs published today.

If
the format is what defines a blog, the author is what defines blogging.
The thing about personal publishing is that it is irreducibly personal.
What makes blogging work is not only its simplicity but also its almost
complete lack of restraint on the authors. Bloggers are variously
wildly opinionated or incisive and informed, long and rambling or short
to the point of beyond terse, left wing, right wing, anarchist,
corporate, or even collective. Blogs are, if nothing else, the voices
of the authors; any order beyond that is coincidence.