BloG->Get Info
I Got asked by a friend the other day, "what's a blog?" I'm a computer guy so I should know these things. Well, quite. The interesting thing to me, though, was the context. It wasn't to track some groups wargaming campaign or a Nascar fan chat, but rather, as a forum for home schoolers to communicate about home schooling issues. Wargaming/NASCAR/etc. strike me as a luxury for those with (too much?) time on their hands, which is a great thing, and beats the heck out of, say, having to work 3 jobs to maintain an existence or hiding from an invading force's executioners. Some folks even try to entertain themselves and others in their spare time. It struck me, though, that given an internet connection among home schoolers (or any group wishing to communicate amongst themeselves without having to check a news group or a web page or e-mail...), the availability of blogging tools (readers & writers) seems to be very good (plug for my current favorite talking blog reader, Juicy News Network over at java.net). I wonder if the state of blog/wiki/rss/etc. is to a point where it's a different enough medium to enable folks communicating that previously wouldn't have bothered or weren't able to overcome the steep barriers most computer things tend throw up in the face of ease of use. (Hey, the thing you just downloaded (yes, you just downloaded something...) requires the .net framework which you need to go download first by clicking here... oops, that page has moved... welcome to the .net developer network, would you like to review a video of someone discussing collection framework design? What do you mean you just wanted to run a program? You see no simple user experience here. You are in a maze of shifty little web sites, all slightly different...)
