Hopelessly Devoted to Blogging

Over the past four months, I have discovered the greatness that is blogging. Immensely popular today, more and more people are getting them for all different kinds of reasons. Some crazy college professors are even implementing them in their classes—gasp! So, blogs are popular—what’s all the fuss about? In this paper, I will examine my experiences with my own personal Tumblr account, my friends’ blogs, my WordPress blog for this class, and political blogs like those of Change.org, showing how the ever-popular blog is a very useful technology indeed that creates community, broadens perspectives, and engages the masses in all sorts of ways.
Of all the communication technologies out there, I chose to write about blogging because of my recent first experiences with it and because I feel that it has made a profound effect on how I see and use the Internet. About a month ago, I opened up an account with Tumblr, one of the many blog engines in cyberspace. I had to choose among other popular blogs like Blogger, WordPress, Blogspot, Livejournal, and Technorati, each of which offers essentially the same features: the ability to post text, videos, photos, links, and mp3s. The main differences between each of these blogs is their layout, the number of design options they offer, and specific abilities. I chose Tumblr because I like its design best and because of the number of options it gives users for their blog layout. Through my Tumblr blog, I really feel like I have gotten to know the Internet and all that it has to offer. I have seen new things that have amazed and inspired me, made me laugh, and made me think, such as inventions, art projects, musical artists, and videos. Blogging is a great tool for exploring the Internet because it allows people to easily find all kinds of information.
That being said, blogs are used for a wide variety of reasons. For example, I use my Tumblr blog to post things I find on the web that I want to be able to access in the future—videos, songs, photos, and articles. I find blogging things that I like to be much more space-efficient than bookmarking all the different pages on my web browser. Posting these items on my blog also allows me to share them with the wider world, and in particular, my friends who visit it. This would not be possible through bookmarking and can become cumbersome via emails. A lot of other blogs I have seen use their blogs for similar reasons. For example, many bloggers post photographs that they like, some of which are entirely devoted to just (see papertissue on Tumblr). Others use blogs as journals, for keeping in touch with family, and for cataloging different categories of things. In the past couple of months as a blogger, I’ve come across blogs on everything from funny Amazon reviews (amazingamazonreviews) to photos of Santa objects in stores during the holiday season (crappysantas) to all kinds of stuff about beer (beeriety) to photos of parents back in the day (myparentswereawesome). All of these blogs serve the purpose of collecting information in various forms of a particular category of things and making that information more accessible to the general public. For example, if I want to find some new Christmas songs, I can go to the letsbeglad Tumblr, which features songs by both contemporary and classic indie musical artists and groups. It’s awesome! Blogs are a great cataloging and bookmarking tool.
Another valuable use of this communications technology is for business or art networking. One of my friends here at Clark is a Studio Art major with a concentration in photography. She designed and started up a blog last year to showcase her work and provide those interested in it with her resume, including all of her gallery showings. Thus, her blog goes beyond the function of sharing her work with others and exposes her work to the wider professional photography community. In this way, professionals can use blogs to gain increased exposure, opportunities, and business.
In addition, groups, not only individuals, use blogs. One interesting example is a community blog called Studio Mothers: Life and Art. My aunt has been a part of this blog for a couple of years now. It serves as a forum for mothers who are also artists in some realm (be it photography, writing, etc.) where they can discuss issues related to balancing motherhood with their work. The Welcome box on the right hand side of the page reads, “Thanks for stopping by! In this creative community, you can share your creative intentions, receive support in making those goals happen, and discuss all things related to creativity. While we’re primarily focused on the issues that creative mothers encounter, all are welcome.” Each blogger also has her own personal blog, which are listed in another box on the page, and posts can be made straight on the Studio Art blog or “crossposted” from the women’s personal blogs. Upon reading through a few posts, I was surprised to see just how much of a community it truly is for these women. Most posts, longer ones especially, have around 10-20 comments on them (one had 42!), most of which are back and forth comments that follow the format of a conversation. Thus, this and other community blogs allow people to create connections to others all over the world, giving and receiving support like any other “real life” relationship. In the Studio Mothers blog, women write about their triumphs and their struggles in their work and in their family life, asking for advice and sharing their experiences. Although I am not part of a community blog per say, the following tool on Tumblr and most other blogs allows you to see and share your interests with others who share them, thus forming community as well.
An interesting use of this community aspect of blogging can also be seen in our class blog experiment. By far, my favorite aspect of our class blogs was being able to read what my other classmates experienced and thought about our microassignments and communicate with them about their thoughts via commenting. Our class blogs had several significant advantages. First, they allowed us to have one-on-one discussions with our classmates through comments. This would be a serious advantage for students who are shy and don’t like to speak up in class. Further, some students just get their thoughts out better in writing. The class blog is also an advantage in situations where students are unable to get a word in during class because of the sheer number of students participating in discussion. For example, students can make comments on their classmates’ blogs about, say, something a classmate said in class discussion and further the discussion there. Thus, their second advantage: students can comment on each other’s blogs and create and ongoing, meaningful discussions. This was by far the aspect that I got the most out of. I loved commenting on my classmates’ blogs and going back and forth with them in discussion. They would bring up ideas I hadn’t thought of and I for them, causing us to learn a lot more than if, say, we had just written separate individual papers for our professor.
The third advantage of these class blogs is that they can be a place where students jot down thoughts and musings that come up randomly, or as they read for class, or whatever else related to the course. For example, if a student realizes something while she’s folding laundry or finds something on the internet that sparks something in her mind related to class, she can blog about it. That way, her mind is active. Class blogs provide a place where students can work through that spark, instead of just letting it go because they are busy doing something else and then (potentially) forgetting it. In these ways, blogging is very useful in classroom settings, expanding the classroom beyond the scope of a student’s assignments and class lectures and discussions.
Beyond their great capacity for creating community, blogs are also a very effective way of raising awareness and activism. One great website that aims to do just this is Change.org. This “social entrepreneurship venture” (www.change.org) raises awareness about issues through the use of 16 different blogs focused around distinct causes from Animal Welfare and Animal Rights to Global Health to Gay Rights to Immigration. Each causes’ blog has a few different people in charge of it who post to it, then anyone who is a member of Change.org can comment on those posts. As a member myself, I have read many extensive comments on the posts that are often a conversation going on between several members that others join in on from time to time. In this way, they are expanding the discussion, further educating other members (and themselves) and raising even more awareness that hopefully inspires members to take action on the particular cause (as is the website’s mission). In this type of blog community, people can learn so much and take part in vital sociopolitical activity.
Another blog that centers around raising awareness and inspiring action is the Emily X blog of Planned Parenthood. Every fall from September through November, this blog charts the experiences of Planned Paren thood employees and activists in their encounters with abortion protestors. As it says on the blog, “Emily X serves as a reminder to the pro-choice community of the harassment and intimidation practiced by opponents of women’s health” (www.iamemilyx.blogspot.com). Both Change.org’s blogs and Emily X allow people to become aware and get involved in causes regardless of their physical location and create community among readers who can collaborate to make change. In this way, blogs serve as the foreground to important social change and political action every day.
The success of this pervasive technology cannot be measured in financial terms. However, it can be measured according to several others, depending on its application. For my personal application as a bookmarking and sharing device, I would say that it is very successful because it saves me a lot of time and is a great way to explore the Internet. My friend who uses her blog as a portfolio of her professional photographic works would measure her blog’s success by how much buzz it generates about her, and by its success as a networking device. Community blogs can also be judged as successful by their ability to bring people together and create active discussions that involve problem-solving. Lastly, the success of blogs that center around increasing awareness and encouraging action can be measured by the amount of action and the success of those actions that were sparked by the blog’s efforts and tools. So, yes, we can all probably name a few people we know who have blogs, but their applications go way beyond just writing about one’s day. And yes, they do provide hours and hours of entertainment (something I’m surely guilty of…), but they are much more than just that. Blogs are incredible community-creating, action-inspiring, networking tools that have captured people and organizations all over the world. As can be inferred solely from the popularity of this technology, it is clear that we are all hopelessly devoted to blogging.

2. What happened? Did anything unexpected happen?
I registered for the chat a few days in advance, then attended it on Tuesday at 2-2:30 PM. During the chat, there was a moderator (Bill K) who started off the chat and would tell us who would ask a question next. He also introduced the person who would be answering all our questions, Sarah Saylor. During the chat, Sarah answered everyone’s questions, providing a lot of information about the Climate Bill and its implications and advantages. People would ask new questions every couple of minutes or so. Nothing unexpected really happened during this chat–I had read one of the previous virtual chats on the site, so I knew what to expect/my experience did not differ from what I read prior to the chat.

3. Was this experience any good? Would you recommend it to others? Why or why not?
Yes, this was a good experience and something I would recommend to others if they are interested in climate change issues. I gained a better understanding of what politicians are thinking as far as this topic goes and also learned a lot about what is at stake if we do not change our climate policy SOON. One thing that was difficult for me in this chat, though, was that Sarah Saylor (who answered all the questions) used technical terms that I as a layperson didn’t fully understand. However, I was usually able to gain an understanding of these terms by the context in which she spoke of them. Overall, this was a very useful experience in that it was a chance to talk live with knowledgeable people about the Climate Bill, which was much different and much more fun than commenting back and forth on a blog or similar online forum.

You can see the chat here: http://www.earthjustice.org/news/chat/climate-bill-101.html

I didn’t ask any questions because I was just trying to take it all in!  This was all new information to me

Four of my comments turned out to be the only comments attached to a particular post/didn’t get a response from the blogger

2. How many different blogs did you comment on?

I commented on six different blogs over the course of the past few weeks.

3.  Did you tend to respond to people you already knew from outside of class?

No, I didn’t tend to respond to people I already knew–I only know a couple of people outside of class!  But no, I think that commenting only on people’s blogs who you are friends with is kind of silly.  You need to spread out!  There’s nothing to lose in cyberspace.  It seems easier to talk to people you don’t know well in real life on the internet, especially on blogs because you may have no idea who a particular person is or what they look like or anything.  Commenting on something on someone’s facebook, on the other hand, would be very different.  It’d be harder to do that because the person would likely think “who is this person?!/wtf?”

4. Do you think this is a useful way to communicate in a class setting?

Yes, I think this a really useful way to communicate in a class setting.  I really like being able to read what other classmates’ experiences are with assignments and on class material or even just their posts on related issues (or not).  Commenting on each other’s blogs is very useful in that it creates an ongoing discussion and gets both minds thinking.  In class discussions, this kind of personal one-to-one discussion doesn’t normally happen, so I think that commenting on each other’s blogs is very useful.

5. What are the advantages/disadvantages of this method of communication?

The last couple of sentences in my last answer would be the biggest advantage of this method of communication.  Another is that you can comment and read each other’s posts on your own time.  A disadvantage is that you really have to keep up with it.  Luckily, wordpress always asks me if I want email notifications of when the other blogger comments back on my comment, so it doesn’t take too much effort on my part.  Not sure if that’s the case with other blogs, though.  Another disadvantage is that it’s not face-to-face communication, where it’d be easier to have an ongoing conversation, agreeing or disagreeing on certain things and collaborating ideas.  However, an advantage of communicating this way is that you can really think about your response to someone’s post or comment ahead of time.

I wrote some entries on parts of the syllabus, such as the detail/description of our microassignments and macroassignments, the blogs, etc.   I didn’t edit any entries because I talked verbally with people in our class about things I would change or consider changing in their edits or additions.
2. How hard was it to make an entry?

It was super easy to make an entry.  I was nervous during class when Paul showed us how to make an entry because it included a lot of HTML stuff that I have no experience with, but luckily, our version of it didn’t include any of that stuff.  Yay!  All we had to do was enter what we wanted to see into the little box.  To make a link, I learned that you had to put these [ ]  around what you wanted to be a link.  Easy peasy and noooo troubles.  I felt so competent!
3. Did you notice the opportunities for social interaction? Did you speak with the student whose entry you edited? Did anyone speak to you about editing your entry? Was there any sort of spontaneous order that resulted from this exercise?

Hmm, I didn’t really notice any opportunities for social interaction on the wiki itself as far as direct communication goes, but it was possible to see who made what changes.  I did speak with students next to me, though, about making changes.  I worked in a group with Ali and Zach and we collaborated our ideas to come up with things to make or edit on the wiki.  No one spoke to me about editing my entry and I didn’t edit anyone’s entry, so therefore I didn’t talk to anyone about editing their entry either.  I did want to change something that Zach did, but I didn’t bring it up because he seemed really proud of it and happy with it   There was definitely some spontaneous order that came out of this exercise, totally naturally.  Every time I went back to the main page after making a change, or after Ali or Zach did, I noticed that people started adding more detail to the coursebooks or to the syllabus.  Thus, people picked up on adding detail and also in making things more obvious about the class.
4. What is your general impression of this tool?

I really like this tool and wish that every class had one so that students could make more educated decisions about what classes to take!  I think its a really useful tool in that way, but that it’s not as useful for us students already in the class.  I could see it being useful if we could start discussions on the wiki about the books we are reading or about assignments (e.g. questions), but I didn’t see anything about that on the wiki (Cicada does have forums/a discussion board, though…).  One way that I could see the wiki being useful to us students actually IN the class, though, is that it could be helpful to look at the summaries of the books before we read them or before we write a paper on them.  I like the idea of having all the info about the class in one place, with links leading back to the main page, instead of like it is on the main cicada page where to, for example, look at the syllabus, it opens up a separate window.

Professor Broderick

Computer Mediated Communication

October 23, 2009

Change.org: Value Beyond Monetary Gain

At the very beginning of Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide, Amy Shuen states, “Web 2.0 turbocharges network effects because online users are no longer limited by how many things they can find, see, or download off the Web, but rather by how many things they can do, interact, combine, remix, upload, change, and customize for themselves.  This online DIY self-expression benefits businesses and other users, not just individual uploaders” (p.1).  Here, she argues that users create value through their actions and creations, but throughout her book, she focuses on what kind of financial value Web 2.0 implementations can bring to a company’s website, emphasizing that profitability is a valid measure of success.  However, there are many other kinds of value that Web 2.0 sites bring to individuals and organizations, like socially good sites.  One such website is Change.org.  Is this site generating value if it is not generating profit for its owners?  Are social awareness, collaboration, and change a valid measure of success as well?  To these questions, I say yes.  Change.org offers citizens a chance to reach across political hierarchies and make a difference, something that has never been easier as it is with Web 2.0.

So, how is Change.org a Web 2.0 platform?  First, it is a social network that links people.  Through its petitions and blogs, members and users can find people who have similar as well as different viewpoints on issues such as women’s rights, environmental policy, homelessness, and many more.  Second, it employs network effects, which explain how the value of a network to users increases as an exponential function of the number of users.  For example, with Change.org, the more people sign the petitions that are displayed on the site, the more sent out to members through email, and the more people sign them, the more valuable the site is in achieving its goal of creating social change.  Further, the more people that take an active part in these efforts, the more of a difference the organization can make, and the more valuable the site is to users.

In network effects, what is valued is not only what each user brings to the table but also the connections they have.  Change.org employs this principle in three ways.  After you take an action on the site, you are asked to (1) invite friends to sign the petition via email, (2) to display your action via Facebook, or (3) to post it on your Twitter account, thus bringing in more people who are concerned about this issue, who will then also hopefully spread awareness about it to even more people.

By employing these Web 2.0 principles, Change.org is a very useful website, allowing users to sign petitions, send letters to their senators,  become aware of other social/political issues, and spread information about issues much more quickly and easily than it has ever been.  Other ways of spreading information about these types of issues, such as newspapers, talk radio stations, and fliers, require much more effort to get to the final step of contacting the governmental representative or organization that you need to—you have to find out who to contact, write out a letter or create a petition, and then mail it out.  Further, finding out about other, related issues often requires a lot more time and effort in print resources.  And more, the collaboration and communication between supporters and opponents of this or that issue living all across the nation and world that occurs on Change.org could not have happened without the computer mediation of Web 2.0.  Thus, this website is of great social value.

Change.org’s vision statement reads: “Today as citizens of the world, we face a daunting array of social and environmental problems ranging from health care and education to global warming and economic inequality. For each of these issues, whether local or global in scope, there are millions of people who care passionately about working for change but lack the information and opportunities necessary to translate their interest into effective action. Change.org aims to address this need by serving as the central platform informing and empowering movements for social change around the most important issues of our time” (Change.org).  One way that Change.org heads these efforts is by making citizens aware of governmental policy, such as proposed bills, etc.  These bills are, in a sense, creative content, either created by a lawmaker, or several in collaboration.  In his book Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig (who is also a founder of Change.org!) discusses how copyright laws have grown with the creation of the Internet and are taking increasingly more control over what we are able to do with cultural creations such as music, stories, works of art, and more.  He states that “with the birth of the Internet, this natural limit to the reach of the law has disappeared.  The law controls not just the creativity of the commercial creators but effectively that of anyone…the law’s role is less and less to support creativity, and more and more to protect certain industries against competition” (p. 19).  Lessig is a big supporter of an organization called Creative Commons, “a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.  We provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof” (creativecommons.com).  Change.org does not go as far as Creative Commons, but is similar in the fact that it shares the work of others (specifically, that of the government) and in how it allows people to state what kinds of changes they want the creative works of different governmental leaders and organizations to make through letters and petitions.  In addition, the site further allows users to build upon the work of  others through its blogs, where members can comment on blog entries and start an ongoing conversation with the community.   Change.org is an organization that “raises awareness about important causes and empowers people to take action with leading nonprofits” (Change.org), enabling citizens to alter the creative content of governmental law and the actions of various organizations.

What would Amy Shuen say about the value of Change.org?  In Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide, she effectively makes her point: profitability=success.  Although Shuen recognizes the collaboration and creativity that Web 2.0 encourages, she skips it in favor of financial profit, focusing her book on that instead. In Chapter 4, she states that “The goals [of industry leaders] have changed from being a steward and ‘managing successfully’ the gains, products, services, and legacy of the past to ‘creating value’” (p. 108)  She goes on to state that “The companies detailed in this chapter have found innovative ways to capitalize on that created value, either with direct revenue streams or, more often, using indirect revenue streams.”  As can be seen from this quote, Shuen certainly wants financial value.  But Change.org capitalizes on another kind of value.  In allowing its members to become politically aware, politically active, and invite friends to become aware and active as well, Change.org creates social value.  While these sites are not necessarily creating a lot of monetary value for the owners, they are certainly creating much value in the fact that they allow citizens to take a much larger part in politics to make the sorts of social change they want to create very easily.

For a Web 2.0 application to be successful or useful, it does not need to be profitable for its owners or for the organization.  Change.org is valuable and useful to its users and to its owners not because it generates financial profit, but because it generates social action and change, which is profit enough for them.  As they state on the site, Change.org is an organization that “raises awareness about important causes and empowers people to take action with leading nonprofits.”  Though Amy Shuen guides businesses in making more money through the use of Web 2.0 principles, Change.org is an example of how Web 2.0 principles can serve more than just a financial purpose.  With this site and others like it, making social change has never been as accessible and easy, which is perhaps more valuable than money.

References

About.  (n.d.).  Received from Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/about/

About Us.  (n.d.).  Received from Change.org: http://www.change.org/info/about

Lessig, Lawrence.  (2004).  Free culture.  New York, New York: The Penguin Group.

Shuen, Amy.  (2008).  Web 2.0: A strategy guide.  Sebastopol, Canada: O’Reilly Media.

]]> http://libberon.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/12/feed/ 0 libberon http://libberon.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/tapscott-williams-wikipedia/ http://libberon.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/tapscott-williams-wikipedia/#comments Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:24:51 +0000 libberon http://libberon.wordpress.com/?p=9 ]]> YO!  So, I’m a little behind in my readings, as I had to miss several classes and was away for the last three weekends due to a family emergency.  BUT, I’m back, and catching up.

This morning I read the Peer Pioneers chapter from T&W and wanted to record my notes on the section of the chapter that talked about Wikipedia.  Here’s what I came up with.

-Many people are against Wikpedia, arguing that the quality of its entries is uneven and perhaps at a “high-school” level, as editor-in-chief of Britannica Encyclopedia says (p. 75).  However, Wikipedia shows up all its doubters and opponents through its many advantages

Advantages of Wikipedia:

• collaboration allows for quicker article creation than that of an idividual
• neutral information is ensured through several recently implemented actions such as the freezing of entries that attract vandalism (p. 74) and nominations of deletion by other users
• volunteers also engage in policing entries and engage in quality control
• FREE information resource
• constantly evolving and improving, unlike print encyclopedias and their online versions that use a closed system where users cannot edit or contribute.
• “taps an almost infinite wealth of talent, energy, and insight that far exceeds what Britannica‘s closed model can muster” (p. 75)
• Owner/founder Jimmy Wales tries “to build a healthy, positive environment so people feel positively inclined to contribute in a constructive way” (p. 76), tapping into the passions of users.

Later today, when I have a bit more time (have to run off to a meeting now), I plan on attempting to edit a wikipedia article, an in-class activity that I missed, to put what I’ve learned to use & give me an opportunity to reflect.

2. I had no difficulties signing up for Second Life, but once I had created my avatar I had a lot of problems.  When we initially set up our Second Life accounts in class a couple of weeks ago, I first created an avatar named Dylan Wobbentay.  However, after going on Second Life about 6 or 7 times and having no luck with being able to personalize my avatar, I got kind of frustrated and then created Annelise.  When I was Dylan, I also was frustrated because of some teleportation issues.  The first place I teleported to was this island with one other person on it.  I was annoyed because the graphics of the island wouldn’t fully load.  As I was wandering around as a little ball of light, I suddenly got stuck in the loading graphics or something and all I could see was brown.  So, I teleported to another location.  This location, however, was worse because it was an even tinier island that was blocked off to anyone other than the owner or those he/she had deemed permission.  Since I couldn’t really do anything, I tried to “Go Home”, but every time I did that, Second Life logged me out and I had to quit.  With my new avatar, Annelise, I also had this issue of getting logged out when trying to teleport somewhere.  I find this very frustrating.

3. I’m not sure what good this technology is and what it could be useful for since I haven’t seen much more than Help Island.  I can speculate, however, that it might be useful if one is interested in building worlds online and perhaps wants to go into video game production.

4.  Yes, I did notice the opportunities for social interaction.  At first, when I was a glowing ball of light, I did feel like I was talking to the void because only one person of many that I tried to talk to actually responded to me.  However, as Annelise, I have had more successful interactions with other avatars.  One male avatar, Cruel Raremaster, helped me out a lot and was very nice.  He told me he knew I was a newbie because of the clothes I was wearing and then invited me to teleport to a place where I could get free clothes.  Unfortunately, when I tried to teleport, I got logged out of Second Life and had to quit.  However, this experience opened my eyes to the opportunities for social interaction on the program.  I don’t feel like I’m talking to the void anymore!

5.  There are two drawbacks to this technology that I can see from my experience: graphic quality and the teleportation issue.  I used to play The Sims when I was in middle school and early high school, and I loved it.  The graphic quality was great and I rarely had issues when going from one place to another in the game.  I came into Second Life with similar expectations for the technology, but was disappointed.  The graphics take a long time to load very often (every time I’ve used it) and it doesn’t always work when you try to travel somewhere.  I’m not sure if this is a problem that only I have or if others have these issues (specifically the teleportation issue) as well.  Something else that I think may be a drawback is that you have to learn all about the Second Life way of life–how to use Linden dollars, how to build things, etc.  When I was talking with avatar Cruel Raremaster, he told me that it would be too complex to try and make my own clothes.  Not everyone has the time to learn how to use this technology to its full extent.

6.  Given my current experience, I do not think I will use Second Life after this class.  I find it fun to talk with other avatars and learn more about the technology and the ways you can use it, but I would rather spend my time with real life people.

2. It was very easy to set up my blog.  When I went to WordPress.com, there was a link on the right hand side of the page to create a new account.  I filled in a small amount of personal information, chose a name, and my blog was created.  In all, it was a breeze.

3.  Yes, I did notice opportunities for social interaction.  On my dashboard, there are a number of features which allow me to communicate with other bloggers on the site and for other bloggers to possibly communicate with me.  For one, there is a comments tab, where  comments people have made on my posts are displayed.  I have the option to write back to them, to delete them, etc.  On my dashboard there is also a section at the bottom of the page where the site displays its top blogs, top posts, fastest growing blogs, and the latest posts that have been made on the site.  That way, when I post, it will immediately show up in that last category and people can read what I wrote.  There is also a feature on my dashboard which displays a graph that shows me how many views per day my blog gets.

4. Given my current experience, I might use this technology after this class is over.  However, I’m not yet sure what I would blog about.  I might want to make a photoblog of my favorite, recently taken photos.  Or maybe I could use it to write about political issues that I am interested in.  So yes, I will probably use this technology after this class.  I like the idea of being able to display my work or ideas to a community that can comment back.