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Yahoo Experimenting with Blogs?
Tee Emm writes "Sven Latham reports on his Yet Another Blog that Yahoo is (probably) experimenting with its blog services for its general users. The test bench is in Korea and may be followed by an international service on yahoo.com. On the main Yahoo site, blogs.yahoo.com as well as blog.yahoo.com both are active though they take you to yahoo groups interface."
Another place for people no one cares about to post rants no one will ever read. Isn't there enough of this on the net already?
DeviantArt Page
NSFWsadly, there was a hole in the language available for "Blog" to fill, as a verb. "writing a journal entry" is too long for these buzz-word filled days. "journalling" doesn't sound right, and it's still too many syllables. "blogging" is short, and to the point.
That said, I hate the word, and it's also pretty inaccurate, as a weblog (the originator of the word 'blog) is a site like Slashdot, not a personal web journal.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
The article neglected to include the permalink to the story.
On a related tangent, how long before our schools start teaching kids how to write in hypertext? I would love for MLA to cover rules like "the linked resource should be relevant to the words that are used to link to it," "never include punctuation in hyperlinks," or "you will die a fiery death if you link the word 'here' to a resource."
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Thought not. Better (less ad-infested) services can be found with competitors. They've stamped the only jewel in their crown, eGroups (now Yahoo! Groups) right into the ground - people only use it now because it's such a pain to migrate a mailing list elsewahere. If this blogging service is as bad as Yahoo! Groups is now, I can't see it taking off (I personally, will be sticking with my Slashdot Journal).
>I mean, would any of us really read wil wheaton's site if he just kept it at yahoo?
/. would read it then.
/. people use AOL, how many /. people think they can make money helping out our Nigerian friends. Yet these things still happen, and make money on them. /. users are the minority and I doubt that Yahoo is really considering the /. crowd as their target demographic.
I would be willing to bet that more people outside of
Really, how many
AOL annouced earlier this summer that they were going to set up the ability for their users to run blogs, so now Yahoo has to do it as well.
Having the resources or knowledge to maintain a blog does not make what you have to write in the blog any more worth reading than what the Yahoo-ites have to say. Sadly, many of the technically-savvy have failed to realize this.
The truth of the matter is, if what you say is worth reading on a regular, or even daily basis, someone will step in and provide you with the resources to maintain your blog, thereby freeing you up to focus on your writing. These resource-providers are called publishers. Whether or not the blog-writer has a publisher is a good litmus test for whether I will devote any of my time reading what he writes.
As for keeping up with friends' activities: we use the telephone. Terribly Old School that way.
It's like graphic design. The personal computer programs that have made it cheap and easy for someone to do the *work* of a designer do not magically transform everyone *into* a designer.
I was always confused by the concept of a blog. Here's a few reasons I can think to use a blog, and why each one sucks.
1. Personal diary. Since it's public, you probably shouldn't put anything "diary worthy" in it. Also, years from now you can still pick up your paper diary and read it, think all these blog sites will still be around?
2. Updates to family and friends. OK, I can almost buy this, but really do we need to put up another barrier between those we love? I would rather tell my parents news on the phone, than tell them to go read my blog. Also, not everyone you know/love knows how to get to it.
3. "Making your mark on the world / etc". No one cares what you have to say, and no one probably reads it. If you have something worthy to say, make a real website, or find a position in the world where people will be able to hear what you have to say.
My biggest problem with though, is #1. I fear that the tech boom will hurt us big time in about 20 years when we realize all our digital videos, pictures, blog entries, etc have disappeared and we have no paper record of our lives. I am looking at it from a purely personal-records point of view, but it affects society on a much higher level as well.
no comment
Blogs can serve a purpose..
Some people on here are just ranting about how the personal experiences, or "dear diary" type of blogs are just flooding the internet, and are completely devoid of any interesting, or entertaining thought. Well, that may be true.. and I'm sure Yahoo! blogs will foster this kind of thing even more (because of easy access, and a large user base), but there are certain blogs out there that are useful, and serve a purpose.
Take my blog for instance (no I'm not linking it..). I created it by using one of those bloggin' apps (pmachine I think..), created my own stylesheet, etc.. So for 1 it looks original. But aside from that, I use it as a way to communicate to my friends and family. I'm away from home (toronto) for the next several months on business in Costa Rica. I don't get to call home that much, and writing emails is tedious to 20+ people, so I update my blog on a daily (heh, okay a few times a week) basis. They reply to me in comments, and it's working out quite well.
So who says they can't be useful?
If you think people would bother to read your blog, then you're either really famous (and you're trying to get your fans out of your face) or you're flattering yourself.
..or you want your friends or family to see what you've been doing if you live on the other side of the world. ..or you want to keep a journal of your life but don't want to carry around a book and pencil. you can get online anywhere, even on vacation.
i really don't care for all the online journals i've seen; they either had too much of one feature or not enough of another, so i decided to write my own.
it's a nice and easy format with a great admin interface for edits, a clickable calendar and image uploading.
if you're interested in obtaining a copy, you can email me spamdot@ventura.nu