I started my blog, Meep Meep in February of 2009. I write what I know, running. After four years of journalism school, the process has been cathartic.
Blogging is the primary tool for the citizen journalist. The reader is invited into the conversation. The information is no longer presented on a stone tablet. It’s subject to critique and made malleable the moment it’s published.A racier example of this would be the Vice Magazine blog.
The op/ed, conversational style allows for more freedom than traditional journalism. Active military units immediately found an outlet in the blog. The government’s censorship of all wartime media left a big hole in the information civilians were privy to. Soldiers immediately filled that hole with their stripped down, no-holds-barred blogs. Check out A soldier’s blog.
The niche audience props the blogosphere up like a kick stand on a shaky Schwinn. Fragmentation is the future of new media; and odds are, if someone out there is passionate about something they're thinking about blogging about it. Any one like knitting?
It's all about finding your tribe - your band of like-minded web surfers. They like what you like and will probably like reading what you like, because they like it, too.
People who feel their opinions require more restropection than their social life affords them should look into blogging. The blog offers them a voice. The volume of that voice is up to them. Check out Whil Wheaton's blog.Granted, Wheaton was famous prior to his blog, but people love this thing. I think it goes beyond the whole Wesley Crusher association.
People with seeminlgy nothing to say can use the blog format to reach others with similar interests. The consensus amongst traditional journalists was: Who wants to read this crap? Attention whores like Perez Hilton prove how completely off-base they were. Hilton's blog is ridiculously popular.
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