Sunday, September 03, 2006

Go Blog Yourself

Job One: You have to create a blog, if you don't already have one. If you do already have one and it's heavily dedicated to some other obsession of yours -- knitting, bestiality, the overthrow of some West Indian government, I would urge you to consider creating a new blog.

Things to consider: It's actually kind of cool if your class blog has a fair amount of other proto-blogger kinds of stuff in it, but you have to remember that your classmates will be dropping in on a regular basis. They may or may not want to read about the person you brought home from the bar last night. And it's sort of a drag for all of us to have to wade through extensive posts about new tanks and rocket launchers just to find the stuff relevant to the class. On the other hand, the people who were most successful last year ran blogs that kind of mingled their personal observations with their homework.

Another thing to consider: Feel free to use any blog-hosting site you like. This is the new beta version of blogger, which is owned by Google. I also blog on typepad too. I'd be willing to bet that the hosting service interacts, in a McLuhanesque way, with the content. Anyway, there are lots and lots of hosting services, and it would be good for our class if a few people dabbled. Last time, LiveJournal was strangely unsatisfying, but it might be interesting to think about what that was.

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