From my first moment in Bali people were asking what Baliblog meant. Why Bali stupid? they would ask. The Balinese word for stupid is belog and they had never heard of blogs. Blog of course is short for Web log, a kind of online diary with frequent, daily, or sometime multiple posts.
What is cool about a blog for me a couple of things. The software behind the blog is refered to as Personal Publishing Software. What is cool about this is that numbskulls like me can log on anywhere in the world with a URL and username and password to bring up your Control Panel and start putting up new articles. My Control Panel for this article is pictured above.
Many people have in the past tried to run their own website and end up either getting way confused with the file structure, HTML formatting problems, or like me simply figuring out whether I am online or not (boing boing boing).
Some people decide the website maintenance thing is too complicated for them and hire a webmaster, meaning they have to email the new articles to that person with instructions as to what category it should be in and where it should link too. All very time consuming and a pain in the ass.
The blog software is actually a mini-database that stores your articles cronologically and plops them into categories (directories) you create by typing the names of. Very simple!
I read an article about how blogs are affecting modern media and how uncomfortable traditional journalists are getting. They refer to bloggers as ‘mob rule’. In a sense it is but that is the great thing here, everyone can have a voice.
A book called the ClueTrain Manifesto written by Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger blasts open the new paradigm of email and blogging and talks about why the flow of information is more powerful than the people trying to stop it.
The internet, to which blogging has added a new dimension, allows information to circumvent hierarchy, meaning if I want to talk to the owner of large company I can often times go to the website and send that person an email. Twenty years ago I would have to go through multiple layers to get to him.
The ClueTrain Manisfesto contains 95 Theses and is very interesting. It directly relates to why modern media and some countries are struggling to deal with the avalanche of information that is flying around.
For travelers, or people who just love travel, a blog is a user-friendly way to share your adventures and ideas. Check out all the travel bloggers there are on the BootsnAll website.
If you want a travel blog yourself wait no longer. You can sign up for one right away and join the party.
Even if fame and fortune are not your goals its is cool to be able to post about your own travels and share them with friends and relatives.
As bandwidth increases globally and devices (cell phones, laptops, PDAs, Ipods, etc) start combining their functions we will have newer and newer forms of sharing online.
Speaking of sharing there is a great BBQ happening this Saturday in Bali with BootsnAll President Sean Keener coming!
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I have had little or no interest in politics but recently saw a talk by the two bloggers that were involved in exposing the incorrect news items reported by Dan Rather. The speed at which the information was exposed & corrected was unheard of in the past & was the first general show of what power, free information can have. You may not agree with the politics but the story is nearly spell-binding. If you are curious about their blog, it is powerline.com.
Bali is a nice place to visit. Good description in start blogging. Also you have very good article for Bali Travel blog too.
Thank you both for your comments and information.
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