Over the past decade, blogs have transformed to meet the needs of the Internet-savvy generation, granting power to the blogger to choose elaborate layouts, post images, and communicate with readers.
According to BlogPulse, an online user survey, there were 126 million blogs in 2009.
Blogging has sparked a social media revolution, allowing anyone, anywhere to write anything and send it into the abyss that is the Internet.
Many Carleton students have joined the blogging community and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
“I am passionate about what I do. I want to share that passion with others,” says Gord Lamb, a third year journalism student and blogger.
Lamb says he experienced many failed blogging attempts, including a learn-to-run blog.
“I started a blog on teaching myself how to run and I hate running,” he says.
Lamb says he reached blogging heaven when he decided to write about his love of food.
“I love it,” he says. “It’s so easy to talk about.”
He now writes The Savoury Starving Student on WordPress, which features photos of delicious dishes partnered with their mouthwatering recipes and a witty recount of his cooking experience.
“Many students think that eating well is an expensive habit. I want to prove it’s not,” says Lamb.
Another Carleton student who has started contributing to the blogosphere is third-year journalism student Hilary Duff.
Duff is the author of Hilary Makes and says she created her blog to document her efforts of learning to cook.
She describes her blog as “a student learning how to cook on a student budget.”
Joining them is Iman Azman, a second-year journalism student, who writes a self-titled blog about her daily life.
She says she was “bitten by the blogging bug” after receiving a four-month blogging assignment in school. That was two years ago and she says she has never stopped since.
Aside from cooking and daily activities, other students have used blogging as a way to document their travelling experiences.
Gillian Turnbull, a second-year political science student, and Britney White-Young, a second-year bachelor of arts student, chronicled their travels to Europe in their blog, Irish Shenanigans, to keep in touch with friends and family.
“It was the perfect way for people to know what we were doing, but on their own initiative,” Turnbull says.
The bloggers praise the opportunity blogs present to communicate their views to many readers through one medium. “There would be one place that everyone could easily access to follow our adventures and communicate with us,” says White-Young.
“There are just so many forms of communication these days with technology always advancing that it was easy and convenient to have a blog instead of using MSN, Facebook, email, etc.”
To start your own blog, these bloggers recommend you choose between the WordPress and Blogspot platforms.
The bloggers say WordPress is more user-friendly, but Azman says she likes the design flexibility on Blogspot.
“I’m super picky,” she says, saying that she has changed the layout of her blog at least 50 times.
Lamb says he enjoys using WordPress and loves the access to reader information, which allows him to track his readers’ paths to his blog and figure out ways to snag more hits.
Most say the objective of blogging is to get as many people to follow or read your blog as possible.
These bloggers have various followers, but many agree they have more hits on the days they release new posts.
Bloggers say releasing new posts takes time and effort. The challenge to keep your blog fresh and current is never-ending.
The bloggers try to post on average one to three times per week.
Duff, who started her blog last April, was unsure about writing during school. “I’ll have to wait and see with school and roommates moving back.”
Azman says her time spent blogging averages around half an hour per post. “I usually already have the idea, sentences and words I want to use . . . I plug my ears with music and write. Its really easy,” she says.
Lamb has set a goal to post once per week during school, which will be a challenge because he says his posts take up to eight hours. His blog requires research to discover new recipes, grocery shopping for ingredients, prep work, cooking time and writing the recount of his experience.
The blogging community is interconnected. Duff and Lamb often refer to one another’s blogs and other blogs for inspiration for their own posts. Duff said it creates “publicity” and shows “good reference skills.”
Lamb says it is impossible to ignore what your fellow bloggers are saying, “You need to give credit [to other bloggers] . . . pay it forward.”
At one point, I supported a friend who considered buying a T-shirt that read, “Nobody cares about your blog,” but for now I will keep an open mind on the topic.
Writing a blog is a form of self-expression. Azman says she believes a blog is an inside view to “the way you see yourself.” “People read [blogs] because they can read and relate to it,” Azman says.
As long as you avoid making your blog an outlet to whine and complain, Azman says, “more people should definitely blog . . . it’s a way to get their names out there.”
Blog Terminology
Blog: a website where an individual or group of users creates an ongoing narrative
Blogger: the author of a blog
Follower: a person who regularly reads a specific blog and receives updates when new posts are released by bloggers
Blogosphere: the world of blogs
Hit: a documented visitor to a blog
Post: a published segment of a blog