Blogs

Now I have to write my thoughts about blogs, apparently.

I got my first blog (on Livejournal) whilst at university. My second is the official OIL one, mainly used to update our news on Facebook via RSS. And then there's this one.

My overwhelming thought about blogs is: they're not really that great. There are a lot of problems with them, really. I especially dislike the way things are ordered chronologically starting with the most recent- it's like reading a book starting with reading the last chapter, then the penultimate, and so on. Or like watching Memento.
Of course, you can always start at the bottom, but that's a bit like reading a book by always starting at the beginning. It's fine, as long as you're reading the book in one sitting. But what about if you've already read half the book? Blogs just don't have a convenient way of putting a bookmark in. And for something that has new content added all the time, that's a huge problem.
So yes, in many ways I prefer forums or emails- the way they combine chronological ordering whilst automatically and easily showing you which are "unread posts" appeals to me.

On the other hand, blogs do have uses. On Livejournal I *love* the Friends Page. On one page I can have all the blog posts from all my friends, plus any RSS feeds I want (Unshelved comics alongside the latest news), plus any posts made to Livejournal Communities I'm a member of. Ideal. An excellent one-stop place to keep informed of the wider world- it's like a better version of Blogger's Reading List of Blogs I'm Following. Although, of course, it does still suffer the sorting-posts-chronologically problem.

I also really like blogs for short informative things, like the OIL blog. It tells readers what the current big projects are, changes to our opening hours, that sort of thing. It's useful! And most posts are self-contained, which means the chronological problem isn't an issue.

Finally, I love the newer developments in blogs- things like trackbacks, where you can see places that have linked to a post. That's neat. Or the RSS feeds can then be fed into Facebook or Livejournal or wherever. And tagging interests me, as a cataloguer.

So yes. I'm torn on the issue of blogs. I think they're overused and there are times that other tools (like forums) would be better. And the ordering of posts annoys me deeply. And yet I still keep several blogs, and watch a whole bunch by checking my Livejournal Friends regularly.

Blogs get a resounding "Meh" from me. I'm too torn to go one way or the other.