Response to Rebecca Blood

Not even half way into this article you can see how fast growing the 'blog' has been. In not even a year the blog interested so many people that one even began learning HTML codes for fun and using off work hours to keep creating. This short piece of the article made me think about the video we saw in class on the first day. The video showed us how incredibly fast the computer came into play and how now we depend of it for some many different things. Not only is it now for entertainment and personal use for things such as blogs; but it is now used for work purposes at minor and major companies and even in the home. It is amazing to see that people took it upon themselves to learn the HTML codes so that they could keep processing weblogs. Without that desire to learn something new, only people who had gone on to education about computers and so on would be able to create a webblog.
Weblog editors seem to be able to pick and chose the way they want their content to be seen; and even how or what part of other's content is seen by the 'surfer'. Everything is pre-surfed. Also, webloggers are picking and choosing different parts of important articles or essays (for example) and other things that are commonly overlooked by the surfer. They are adding their commentary about a subject they may not even fully understand. What if the weblogger (publisher) decided they wanted to put their own thoughts into an article from a prestigious medical website (or something like that). The common surfer may overlook the full article and only find the webblog of the person who has decided to add their own commentary to something they may hardly know anything about. That scares me a little. I feel that the blog should be used to more personal things, but freedom of speech comes into play there.
The weblog grew and more and more people began to blog. The blog shortly turned into a short journal (blog style weblog). Instead of writing a diary or journal in a notebook, it was online where anyone could see it and respond to it. It became a conversation online much like AIM. The short journals online have since become very similar to that of FACEBOOK, MYSPACE, and TWITTER. I have all 3 of the before mentioned websites and I can see a lot of similarities in them and those of the webblog. I can update my status and let everyone who has me as a friend see what I am doing and add my own personal commentary to anything on the site (even that written by a friend or family member). Myspace even had a space where you could write a blog. I could have updated it everyday if I wanted to or even twice or three times a day. On Twitter, people can see what you are doing at any moment of the day, all they have to do is read your profile and all the tweets that have been submitted by you. People with Twitters commonly tweet maybe ten times or more a day! The weblog has lead to so many different ways of communication and writing but I can see a privacy issue emerging. Still, the creativity and personality in every type or blog or website that is similar is great and I love the way things have evolved over the years.
I can see her point in the filtered webblog being that it minimizes time for those who don't have time to surf the web to its full extent. I mean who really has that kind of time. Although, the problem with that is the accuracy of the information you are reading. You may get the information you want but with the added commentary and biases from the blogger.
I completely agree with what she said about how blogging everyday can increase the confidence in one's writing. Just over the past few days after being in this writing class I can see that I am writing more and more and each time I write it gets easier. I am still no where near where I need or want to be with my writing but I think getting criticism and things of that sort are essential when you want to grow in your writing. Blogs are exactly the kind of thing you should do when you are looking for growth and encouragement.