A history of my experiences with blogs Part 1

Just felt like writing something about blogs today; mind you this was not planned nor was it in the “blogging pipeline” . In fact I don’t know where the impulse came from or where I got the thought for this entry.Guess I just felt like writing about my own personal experiences with them. Due to the length of this entry, I have decided to split it into 2 parts 

It was 5 years ago when I personally heard the word “blog” for the first time. I discovered it , not on the web, but rather in an article in a local newspaper. Each week, the newspaper had a special pullout page which had all the news and latest discussions on the world of IT. From game reviews, to hardware recommendation the weekly IT pullout page was something I looked forward to. 

One fine day, sometime in the early months of 2003, the pullout page ran an article on blogs. At that time, blogs were literally unheard of, well at least in my part of the world. The article mainly focused on, well at the time Blogger.com.  By then, Blogger.com had become a free service. Anyone could subscribe to it. 

Curious to know what the world of blogging was about, I decided to try my hands at it, without really realizing what I was gonna do with it.  I was somewhat into web building at that time, anyone still remember geocities?  I still remember it wasn’t big at all, blogging that is during those years. In fact the term “blog” was quite unheard of. 

After a couple of attempts of trying to keep a steady consistent pattern of blogging, I decided to call it quits. It was just too time consuming and I just didn’t see the “need” for a blog at that time.  With too many things were already happening in my real world, the thought of taking time to just pen down my thoughts didn’t seem motivating at all. 

The Pioneer Blog

It was only after a couple of months LATER, I would once again start blogging. I would consider this blog that I had started to be the pioneer blog for me. Although it was more updated than the earlier one, once again, it didn’t last very long.  Yet again discipline was the issue, coupled with the fact at that time, I did not have access to the internet as much as I do right now. Often times I would have to go to the library or the university computer lab to surf the net, as the internet connection in my dorm was too slow. And no it wasn’t the residence facilities that were lacking; it was my computer, it was so old that it did not have an Ethernet card, hence dial up was the only option from my residence!   

Socializing via Blogs

I would also admit this: the blog-buzz wasn’t quite there yet. I knew very few people who blogged ; none of them my real-world friends. That’s when I grasped the notion that blogging was more a private thing. Because I had no readers, essentially my blog was “non-existant,” and it didn’t bother me so much. I blogged for myself, for my own pleasure and memories. Web traffic, hit counters, link swapping didn’t matter to me at all. In fact I didn’t even know about such things.

It was around mid 2005 when I began to learn about socializing using blogs. I don’t know how I got to know it as I can’t remember in detail how did I come to learn about other blogs, but I guess it was through googling I got to know other blogs. As a final year student, I would google up on issues like finding jobs back at home and other career stuff that would worry any final year student.  My search led me to find blogs, something I didn’t quite expect. 

And that’s when I got to really learn about socializing using blogs. I would often leave comments, or think in depth about the thoughts the author was trying to articulate.  It was fun having to connect with others through blogs. The conversations became MORE alive, more interesting and more thought provoking

I guess this gave birth to a whole new way of blogging for me. No longer was I interested in blogging about what I had for lunch, or chronologically jot down the events of the day.  Socializing with other people via blogs in a way, forced me to articulate my own thoughts. It made me think deeper, and look beyond just my own four walls. At this point in time, I was learning more about the outside world. It made me more aware of things that were happening around me, be whether it was about politics, world issues or even entertainment.

Reading Malaysian blogs in particular, gave me a small peephole at the time as to what was really going on in my country. It gave me an insight view on Malaysia, which was very interesting and enlightening at the same time. I remember posting comments on some of these blogs, sometimes providing my own little thoughts, sometimes asking the authors questions on the entries they wrote. 

End of part 1