Since the beginning of recorded time, mankind has longed to be heard, to be remembered, to have their voice live on after their body is gone, in essence, to record their time on earth. It used to be that only the rich, educated, or privileged could write, or were allowed to record their own thoughts. Like most other things, the advent of technology, the home computer, and the internet, have made this inequity nonexistent.
The internet has allowed regular people, all over the world, to communicate with each other in ways never before thought possible. All of a sudden, people were writing online journals, web logs, or blogs.
It’s hard to believe that it all started, over ten years ago, with a little web site called OpenDiary. OpenDiary was revolutionary when it was unleashed on cyberspace in 1998. For the first time, anyone, anywhere could create their own “website” to share whatever was important to them. It was the first blogging platform to enable commenting on posts, allowing users to collaborate, share, disagree, and discuss the current affairs of their lives. Then, in 1999, we saw the rise of the most popular blogging platform to date Blogger.com. Blogger brought blogging, or “web logging”, to the masses. Since then, we’ve had a multitude of other blogging websites, with many different formats and serving a plethora of niche markets.
Having all of these fresh new perspectives collectively voicing their opinions can be a little daunting, though. Even picking someone else’s blog to spend some time reading can be a tough choice. With so many thousands of people to listen to, how do you pick just one? Therein lies the beauty of the digital age. No longer confined to one subscription to one newspaper, people are discovering their own news, following thirty blogs instead of one Wall Street Journal.
So how does one actually go about creating a blog? It is actually one of the easiest things you will do all day. In most cases, creating a blog takes absolutely no technical knowledge of designing a website, other than maybe picking out colors or fonts. Most blogging platforms give you little control over actual layout and presentation, but simplify the process so that everybody can get in the game. The exception to this rule is the platform called WordPress. Wordpress is open source, which means that anybody can view or change the programming code that makes the application work. Conveniently, this also means that you can add to the code, to simplify repetitive actions or, really, anything imaginable. Wordpress is the best option for people who want a lot of control over final presentation and a platform with infinite extensibility.
Let’s not forget that thanks to the wonders of modern technology, we aren’t even limited to the written word anymore! People all over are getting microphones and cameras that connect to the computer to either play radio host and produce some podcasts (audio “blogs”), or turning the camera on themselves to show the world how they really feel, and creating video blogs, or “vlogs.”
All that’s left now is to find a topic that stirs emotion or passion, develop that idea, and run with it. Be it print, or audio visual, just express what is important to you. Someone, somewhere will be grateful you did.
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