Six months ago I had no idea the land we are about to visit even existed. Six months ago I had not seen the sights, visited with its people or fallen in love with its diversity. Six months ago I didn't have a blog.
Urban Dictionary defines blog:
blog
n. Short for weblog.
A meandering, blatantly uninteresting online diary that gives the author the illusion that people are interested in their stupid, pathetic life. Consists of such riveting entries as "homework sucks" and "I slept until noon today."
v. intr.
The act of posting to a weblog.
I started my blog to keep in contact with a dear friend who lived in another state. I hadn't seen her since college (over 18 years), but our lives as mothers were running parallel tracks and we had started emailing each other on a regular basis. We exchanged stories, advice, sympathy and encouragement. She started a blog. I started a blog.
I started a blog before I had ever read a blog.
Within minutes of setting up my account at Blogger, I was officially a blogger. I had a blog.
What am I going to do with a blog?
I started recording what what was going on in my life. I posted pictures. I wrote about the kids, the TV I watched, the electrician that over-charged me. It was a natural extension of the scrapbooking that I was 3 1/2 years behind on.
It was instant. I took a picture. Downloaded. Posted.
I started reading Heather's blog that chronicled a lot of the events we both attended. I started reading another blog written by a girl who had married one of my childhood friends. I started venturing out of my circle of people who I knew in real life...
And then I received the first comment on my blog from someone I was not related to or knew. Soon I was reading her blog. And that is how it starts.
It became a game of networking. Finding new people who made me laugh, cry or shared my views. New people link to new people. New links to explore. New stories to share.
It soon became apparent that there are many reasons people blog. I was not alone in my daily life report. Many people blog to record.
Many people blog to network.
Many people blog to vent.
Many people blog to sway opinion.
Many people blog to teach.
Many people blog to earn a living.
Many people blog for no reason.
Many people start on one path and end up on another.
Many people switch gears daily.
What I would like to do over the next week is to explore a few of these reasons. The internet has been dubbed the new media. A large portion of that new media are women just like you and me who express their opinions on a daily basis through their blog.
How are these women changing the way women interact?
How are these women changing the way advertisers relate to this demographic?
How are these women changing politics?
How are these women changing the path of their families lives?
This subject is limitless. I would love for everyone to have read everything I have over the last 6 months. Since that is impossible, I am going to try to pick out a little tiny portion of a little teeny corner of this subject to share.
I am going to try to sprinkle throughout my entries links to blogs I love to read. Even if you just visit a few you will get a feeling of the world that is out there. And please try and visit my blog over the next week. It will be helpful for perspective and I could use the traffic...
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