Yzabel / July 28, 2005

Today, I changed my “Current Read” in the sidebar, to reflect what I’ve indeed been reading since yesterday evening. This made me realize that in the past few weeks, I’ve read quite often about blogs, blogging, how it all started and evolved… Let’s check: I first started with Rebecca Blood’s The Weblog Handbook, back in June (Rebecca writes theblog What’s in Rebecca’s Pocket). Almost immediately after having finished it, I jumped on Biz Stone’s Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content; I had never read Biz’ blog before that, but it didn’t matter. Now, I’m onto his second book. Among my regular reads, I follow several blogs “about blogging”, in order to keep in touch with what happens in this little world, and because I find these interesting (as long as they’re not the only thing I read). Am I obsessed?

I came to the conclusion that it may, all that simply, be my usual tendency to want to go deeper, to the roots of a phenomenon. Yes, blogging has skyrocketed in the past two or three years, compared to what it was in the beginning. Yes, I am myself quite a “newcomer” to this scene, given that I haven’t really blogged before 2004 (except for some “online diary” on AMV.org that doesn’t present much interest for anyone else than myself). Yes, this may explain why I like knowing more, because it teaches me interesting things, how to behave, what not to do, and what gave birth to all of this. In all of this, there’s a real social analysis; bloggers are, after all, social creatures, in a way (how can one write that much if they never communicate with others — and why would they blog in first place?)Obsession? Perhaps. However, I’m learning a lot regarding internet behaviors, and this remains pretty interesting no matter what. I’ll die a little less stupid, I guess.