Blogs!

ATS has Blogs! MySpace has Blogs. There seems to be a Blog explosion! Heck, I even used to have a blog. It seems that all God's children's got blogs.

Blogs have had a tremendous impact on society. People can communicate with friends and family in a static format. News can be disseminated from the location of breaking events by anyone with a laptop and WiFi. Teenagers can meet serial rapists and murders. The possibilities are limitless.

Do you have a Blog? If so what do you use yours for? Do you track the traffic?

Let's use this thread to explore the social meaning of Blogs, as their impact the members of ATS.

Oh, by the way, one of our ATS bloggers is doing interviews of members on an ATS blog. I find that to be an interesting endeavor. Perhaps, you will, too.



www.belowtopsecret.com...

[edit on 2006/8/8 by GradyPhilpott]

blogging is awesome...

especially when it is a part of the ATS universe...

Now that's a lotta bloggn'!

Technorati recently tracked its 50 millionth blog.

www.sifry.com...

According to recent statistics from blog-tracking site Technorati, the blogosphere has doubled every six months for the last three years. That's 175,000 new blogs per day worldwide. Technorati added its 50 millionth blog on July 31, 2006.

"It is over 100 times bigger than it was just 3 years ago," Sifry said on his own blog. "Whenever I write about these statistics, I'm always asked by people, 'Can it continue to grow this quickly?' Frankly, I can't possibly imagine it continuing to grow at this pace--after all, there are only so many human beings in the world! It has to slow down."

For June, English gained as the most popular language among bloggers, at 39 percent, followed by Japanese (31 percent) and Chinese (12 percent). The most popular times of day for English language bloggers to post is between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. PST, with another spike at 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

news.com.com

However powerful the blog is, it is a PC based technology, at least, as I understand it and there is an influential IBM veteran, Sam Ruby, who believes that the cell phone is going to do to PCs what it has done to landlines and watches (?!).

Which technology has had the most impact in the last 25 years?
The cell phone, according to well-known IBM software developer and blogger Sam Ruby. Though his represents just one opinion, Ruby made a strong case for why the cell phone outstrips the PC in terms of effect on the world.

"It's killing the landline; it's killing watches; it's changing the camera business; it's changing the TV industry, the music industry," Ruby said Monday at the New Paradigms for Using Computers (NPUC) 2006 workshop at the IBM Almaden Research Center here.

"It's destroying the pay-phone industry. It's hurting the hotel industry and putting the squeeze on universities," he said during a talk titled "Teenagers on the Go." To highlight the future stability of the device, he added, "Teenagers love the cell phone."

news.com.com

Ruby maintains that in the future the cell phone is going to do it all from telling time to navigating city streets, to recording the family reunion, to (wonder of wonders) making a phone call.

Now, that we've broadened this topic just a little what are your thoughts on all this instant communication and myriad functions bundled into one very portable device.

Do you blog, email, or text message?

How have these influenced your life and how will the evolution of communication impact us all?


[edit on 2006/8/7 by GradyPhilpott]

[edit on 2006/8/7 by GradyPhilpott]

Personally, I have no blog and I hardly ever stop to read one thoroughly except if someone relates me to some very outstandig entry. On the other hand, I've been on internet forums for five years now, which, I think, have a similar quality to them.

Peter Russell thinks - and I'm with him on some of his points - that we are on our way to a "Global Brain". Building upon Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, he points out the similarities between the sudden explosion of connections between brain cells in an unborn child and the global interconnection of our minds and brains that has taken place in less than two decades.

Blogs and Forums are the synapses of the digital earth spirit. As GradyPhilpott stated, miniaturization indicates that not far from now, we'll have our communication devices with us. We'll live in close symbiosis with them. Skeptic? Just imagine to be cut off from your phone or the internet for just one month. I have experienced it. Of course I'm not communication "addicted", but I have to admit it was like quitting cigarettes the first few days. I started learning guitar, I read a whole lot of books that I had bought or borrowed a very long time ago... what will it be like in 50 years, when we, our children and our grand-children will have got so used to being "plugged in" that we can't even imagine forgetting our Communicator at home - sometimes I even wonder how long it will take until some guy has his cell phone implanted in his neck.

That may sound a little far-fetched, I know. But look: there are efforts already to establish a "semantic web", supposedly to further improve search engines and help researchers. One day, our human-computer-interface communication may sound like this:

"query: I'd like to join a discussion group of open-minded, nice and friendly conspiracy theorists.

1 result: Hi Akareyon! Based upon what we know about you from your blog, we invite you to visit abovetopsecret.com. Find fellow truth-seekers, enjoy political debates and philosophical discourses."

Take this. Take "Genetic Programming", programs that obey the law of evolution by mutation of their source code (already, some of these Golems have solved mathematical riddles). Take the quest for AI. Still not afraid of "The Matrix"?

Don't be, we just need to pull the plug (on the other hand... remember Skynet?).

On a certain scale, that giant Web will gain consciousness. Even if only to the level that a few controllers just need to do a query on the databases to find out what percentage of the world population thinks what on a certain topic, so they know what global decisions have to be taken. "Oh, just look, that giant green blob! There's a growing meme indicating we should stop polluting the environment and start to respect nature! And there... look at this shiny sphere... what does it say? 'no more war'... now that's strange. That seem to be good ideas. Let's do a semantic query if there are any valid arguments for those memes... fascinating! It looks like we've just found the world formula."

That's the impact that blogs will have on our society. Soon enough, we will be run by a government that looks straight into our heads, dissects our feelings... and, be sure of that, uses this knowledge wisely to benefit all humans on earth, so they can live peacefully and freely according to their dreams, wishes and talents.

[edit on 8-8-2006 by Akareyon]

Blogging has three faces, Friend Grady.

On one hand, we have people who are veritable independent news sources unto themselves, as well as being other scholarly applications. They are the least...well, populous.

In the middle, we have blogs like are all the rage on ATS, where people *coughzedcough* post links to stories of negligible value or interest, along with a one liner like "I LIKE BOOBIES".

Then, there's blogs like mine or Duzey's, or even Semper Fortis's. I use mine to keep people I don't see often due to distance or other factors up to speed on what's happening in my life, and use their likewise.

The last two have the best part of the market share, so to speak. I find blogs enjoyable, for the better part. Consider getting one, Grady.

DE

I had one on MySpace, but I let it slip during an illness and it wasn't drawing any traffic anyway. In order for a blog to be useful, there has to be someone who cares what you say and do. That leaves me out.

You say that like people care about my battle against the spiders, or my intensely abstract references to stuff. Or my pup. C'mon, succumb to peer pressure.

DE

Grady,

You'd be surprised. I think a lot of people would read your blog if you started one.The community spirit of ATS is extended to the blogs. To the point where there appears to be some disagreement amongst the ranks about the 'right' way to blog. I think it's because of a feeling that these members are a part of our extended family and it's them people are interested in, not the subject matter. Just a guess on my part, as I haven't got a big issue with that kind of blogging. I just don't frequent them as often.

I wasn't too sure about the whole blogging thing at first, but now I love it. I am finding that I have a harder time drawing the line revealing personal information, which can be duly noted in my last entry. :shk: The best part of the ATS blogs are the friendships that I have either made or strengthened while doing it.

I don't pay a lot of attention to traffic. It is nice to know that you're not just typing to yourself, but I'm not concerned with getting the numbers up or anything. It's the comments that I truly love. It's even better than a u2u titled Applause!.

I think blogging is a waste of time, nobody cares what you think. I only join for groups that discuss specific subjects.

I wonder in which category my Blog falls... It's definitely not the "I like Boobies" category, so it must be the "veritable independent news sources unto themselves, as well as being other scholarly applications"... I wonder if "populous" is a good or a bad thing?

Aaaanyway, I enjoy the ATS blogs immensely. It's a tad more personal than ATS Forum, and I also prefer reading personal views and insights to "general news" items. (I wonder how many times I've said that this past week...)

As for why I Blog? Initially I got a Blog in order to qualify for the PSP competition (talk about a carrot in front of the donkey), but as I went along the competition didn't matter anymore. My entries are as random as the could possibly be, by I do my utmost best to make every entry interesting (or controversial?) enough to keep them coming for more of my personal "insight"...

I spent half of my day reading all the ATS Blogs, and the part I like the most is the friends I made. Blogging is now as much an addiction as ATS forum is. And as Duzey said, the comments are my very favourite part.

So, in the end Blogs can be therapeutically - you can write about anything you want (no strict rules such as the forum - it's YOUR domain) so you can rant, laugh, cry, whatever. And if it's interesting enough, you'll get an audience and take the therapy up a notch.

It’s much like a diary with the exception that complete strangers read it (and sometimes give you feedback). It’s a modern journal – much like people had in the days long gone by.

Edit: Grady, you should try it out... Get a couple of comments, make a few friends, and you'll be hooked!

[edit on 17-8-2006 by Gemwolf]

I've thought about creating a blog but I don't know how one does that. Plus I'm not sure that anybody would care about what I wrote. I so enjoy other people's entries though.

You can buy a blog in the ATS store for 1000 points.

As long as you put entries in it, you are bound to get some visitors. That's the beauty of ATS blogs, you have a built-in audience. I didn't think it was possible, but my blog has actually enhanced the ATS experience for me. The blogs seem to be more personal and laid back. I like getting a sense of the personalities behind the member names.

Come, join our little blogworld. We don't bite, except for Gemwolf.

Originally posted by Duzey
Come, join our little blogworld. We don't bite, except for Gemwolf.

Hey... I don't bite!... Ok, ok. Maybe I do, but it's not like anyone has died from it.

Originally posted by Gemwolf

Originally posted by Duzey
Come, join our little blogworld. We don't bite, except for Gemwolf.

Hey... I don't bite!... Ok, ok. Maybe I do, but it's not like anyone has died from it.

It's ok I just tend to bite back.I might try a blog here on ATS if I can figure out how to do it.

Yours truly has been interviewed by They see all on his blog:

GradyPhilpott Inteview

It's everything you wanted to know about GradyPhilpott, but were afraid to ask!