How I got into Blogging

I did it for the simplest of reasons...everyone else was doing it. Now, I know the adage about "Just because everyone else is doing it, doesn't make it a good thing" and the warnings against fads. But with thousands of blogs being created everyday, blogging has graduated into something that's a big part of our daily lives. That may sound strange coming from someone who got into blogging as "late" as I have, but you could also say that's how big the impact of blogging has become that it would convince someone like me to get into it.

Being the introvert that I am, I found it weird that people would share sometimes their innermost thoughts publicly, something like an online voyeur with the world as audience. But eventually, I saw that blogging was a healthy way for people to vent off steam or offer a venue to display their writing talents or share their interests with a much wider audience. Of course, sometimes blogging can get you into trouble (in the United States, there were several cases of employees getting fired for blogging stuff about their employers) but overall, blogging has managed to offer the everyday person a means to express oneself without needing to be a public speaker or journalist. How's that for kicking off your plans of world domination, eh?

So how did blogging emerge from nowhere to become the biggest mania since Michael Jackson? Well, it didn't exactly come from "nowhere". Just like everything about the Internet, the "blog" started out as the simple web log, a means of sharing information and links with a small community or group. Pretty handy when technicians are located thousands of miles apart yet need to work together on a project.

However, towards the late 90s, blogs slowly transformed themselves into personal means of expression. With the explosion of the Web, these online journals became more accessible. And with the creation of blog sites that allow even non-technical people to create and maintain their own blogs, the dam broke and now almost anyone has a blog.

This reminds me of the progress of the cellphone market in the Philippines. As far as the late 90s, cellphones were for the priveleged few who were assigned a unit at work or had enough money to buy their own cellphone. And then Globe introduced text messaging and from then on the cost of cellphones had steadily dropped and cheap pre-paid and post-paid plans sprung up until millions of Filipinos now own at least one cellphone. Now, one would almost feel naked without it. I shudder to think of the day when people feel withdrawal symptoms if they don't get to blog. Hmm...moderation is the key!