Yesterday I went along to Blogout 2009 in Singapore. Up until very recently blogging, although being something I had been aware of for years was not something I fully got. I am pleased to say I now get it. This is both thanks to a talk by Preetam Rai at Blogout today and Mr. SquareCirclez whom I talked to at BarCamp last week.
From my point of view a blog provides individuals working in a narrow field a boost in credibility that they could only previously get from being associated with an organisation.
For example, say I was really interested in fossils. I may enrol in a university on a PhD. programme, read a lot, research a lot, write a thesis, graduate and stay in academia researching. As I publish papers in academic journals, speak at conferences etc. I will build a reputation as someone who knows his stuff within that academic community and be accepted into it.
Now suppose I am not interested in fossils but the history of paper clips. The likely hood of being able to take that up as an academic subject in a university is small. However I could read a lot, research a lot and write a blog with interesting and original articles on the history of paper clips. Marketed correctly the paper clip history community (if it exists) will find my blog and comment on my articles.
This in turn with statistics on how popular each article is would give me an idea of what people are interested in and give me a direction to go in when writing further articles. As more people get to know about my blog so my reputation in the community will build and soon people all over the world will be asking me for your views on the history of paper clips. I would then be part of the community or so the theory goes 
I believe that in a wider context this is another way that the internet is providing individuals with an alternative to reliance on large organisations but that is another story.
Entries (RSS)