Real Kato Blog: Blogging: Past, Present, and Future

We've come a long way. BABY.

Do you remember the early days of the Internet?

Some of us put up little rinky-dink web pages. We wrote little descriptions of ourselves, put up a few photos, and made lists of our favorite things. We told everyone to come look at our web sites, which they did... exactly once. When we went the next six months without adding any new content, we found that everyone lost interest.

Way before the days of blogs, I realized that the only way to attract people to my web site would be to continuously post new content. So I tried to add useful things periodically, like reviews of restaurants and movies and such. It didn't occur to me to write about myself, because who would be interested in THAT?

The first time I heard the word "web log", I thought people were talking about the access logs that web servers maintained, to see who was visiting what web pages. (These days we know those as stat-counters and site-meters.) So I thought, "What's the big deal about web logs?"

Then I heard that some people were putting diaries on-line, and I thought: that's a pretty exhibitionist thing to do. I kept a private diary for a long time, and I never once thought that making it public to the world would be a good idea. Even if I changed names and kept myself anonymous, surely someone would link it back to me.

And even when I started using blogging software, I still just used it to put up reviews of restaurants and movies.

How things have changed.

I don't think of myself as particularly exhibitionist, but I want people to know me, and to share in all the craziness that goes through my head. It makes me feel connected to people in a way that I never thought possible. Because of this blog, I'm making new friends all over the world. It's really a wonderful thing.

A blog, as a writing medium, is pretty unique. There are certain stylistic conventions like shouting for emphasis ("and then I proceeded to EAT THE WHOLE THING"), talking with breathless exasperation ("Did you hear about Renee Zellweer and Kenny Chesney? OH. MY. GOD."), and of course, liberal use of the word "ass". It's more conversational and emotional than most other kinds of writing, and it's often very personal. I think that's why blogging is so interesting.

That's also largely why my blog is the way it is (wet and dirty). And, it's the reason why I have a particular penchant for reading "mommy blogs": I think those tend to be the most personal and heartfelt. If you haven't read a post that sends you reaching for the kleenex, you probably haven't gotten the full Blog Experience yet. (Oh, and I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT PORN, you pervert.)

Granted, every now and then I still post quiet little reviews of restaurants and movies, and sometimes I write stuff that only I would be interested in. Old rinky-dink habits die hard sometimes. But the bigger my audience gets, the more I want to be personal and funny and LOUD. VERY VERY LOUD.

As for the future, I believe that blogs are the next big killer app for the Internet. First we had e-mail, which was once a novelty ("why would you spend all that time typing when you can just call someone?") but is now a necessity. Then we had the World Wide Web, which was once a collection of crappy useless pages but is now one of the most important information distribution systems in the history of mankind. And now, we have blogs. Someday we will look back and find it quaintly inefficient how we used to rely on one-to-one communication via telephone and e-mail. With blogs, we can rapidly reach a broad audience, spreading our ideas and creative works around the world instantly.

It's all part of how the Internet is democratizing society. Before, only certain people could be information couriers. There were a select few people who were journalists, authors, and composers, because the physical distribution system forced us into that model. Now, anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can be their own media tycoon. Blogging is overtaking conventional print media as a source of timely information. Podcasting is overtaking radio. And video blogging will come soon, and in time it will overtake television.

I think the possibilities are grand. We can be free from the fear that power of information will be concentrated in the hands of governments and multinational corporations. We can break down political and economic borders. We can free the world.

So, just in case you think this blog is just a lot of prattling about poop... keep in mind that I'm really trying to save the planet.

Thus, the motto for this blog: YOU WILL KNOW THE POOP, AND THE POOP WILL SET YOU FREE.

Permalink 1 Comment

Posted by Ken in: bloggers

Comments

Comment #1 from Cori (Guest)
2005 May 13 - 12:34 pm : #

I like blogs like yours, where people talk about their lives and feelings and opinions. But oddly, the idea of doing the same with my own is almost a horror to me, and I don't know why.

I have a friend who said that, in the years we knew each other before we were friends, she always thought of me as unknowable. She even thought I didn't like her because of I was so reserved - when the truth was that I always thought she was one of the sweetest, nicest people I'd ever met, from the moment I met her.

But it's true; I hate the idea of people knowing what I think about things, and I don't know why.

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