Tuesday, October 04, 2005

No time to read?

I've been told that people just don't have time to read posts longer than two or three paragraphs on a blog. I guess that makes sense and even though it goes totally against my nature. So I am going to only do short blogs and see how that works out. I can't make any promises here because I do tend to go on but in that case I must just have to serialize the post and break it up over a few postings. That's probably what I'll do. I have been trying to get the site and the feed listed on as many blog lists as I can but being a newbie at this I don't always get the technical side. If anyone is willing to help a new guy out please email me or post a comment to help. I want to learn how to navigate the whole technorati thing and put keywords to my posts as I see on other sites. Anyway, any help would be appreciated.

I am ordering a couple of items off the cafepress store that I opened to see if they are of good quality. I don't want anyone spending money before I see if it's worth it. If the items are good I'll let you all know here and then you can order to your delight. I do not plan on offering any type of guarantee over the cafepress one so buyer beware on that. I expect that it should be good since the site is pretty popular.

OK now for some interesting stuff. I've been surfing the web at night going through other blogs and I see a wide range of different types, themes and quality. Some are very intelligent, original and slick. Others, well, no so... But I think this blogging thing is great and next to podcasting which takes a little more of an investment it's the new future of communication and journalism. Media has been changing for years now and this technology, far from being a revolution, is a new tool that will expand the type of information and news coverage available to the world. Imagine that people in Iraq or New Orleans can report on events in real time! We called the Vietnam War the TV war because every night Americans watched the action from their homes. In the first Iraq war we saw nightly the things that went on mostly that same day or previous evening. Even in 2001 for the attacks on 9/11 we watched with a delay of minutes of hours. Now we can see and read about events happening minute by minute. We can have reporters (professional or amateur) telling us what it feels like to be on the inside as the events unfold. No waiting for analysis or to embed reporters into the area. Anyone with a wireless connection can be anywhere reporting as things happen. We can experience the soldiers’ reactions immediately after a firefight or the daily drudgery and pain of the flood victims in New Orleans. It gives us a sense of immediacy that we never had before and brings us closer to the events, makes it more real. Perhaps when we see it happening in real time and can get the unfiltered emotions of the people experiencing the news as it happens then we will learn to feel empathy for those suffering far away or we will think twice before committing humans to a war without cause. I think of that Jet Blue airliner with the damaged landing gear coming in for a landing and because of the satellite TVs on the plane the victims were watching their own drama unfold as it happened. They were at the same time victims and watchers of the events. It is a duplicity that we never had before. I can now watch myself experience the drama from outside my own experience.

So I just broke my own rule for not posting longwinded essays! I never learn.

Remember that feedback is appreciated and reciprocated!

L.S.C.

3 comments:

ObilonKenobi said...

Thanks for the info. I'll go to the site and check it out.

ObilonKenobi said...

More pics huh? Ok. I like pictures. I will help cut down on the verbal barrage!

Me said...

I think it's not so much the length of a post that readers tune out of, it's what it's about. Even if an entry is long, if the tpic is interesting enough, they will keep reading.

I know it's hard to concise everything you want to say in just 1 or 2 paragraphs. So, the trick is to hook them up with the beginning of the article and just reel them in with interesting stuff.

You're doing okay. All the best!