Time to sum up my trip to bloglandia. Before the trip: Finding Josh Marshall, and really good political blogging, and realizing blogging had changed. Recognizing a desire to roll my own blog like JMM, my history of private blogging in chrono-order for the past ten years, and logging as self-education. Trying to solve a no-tech friend's need to update a 'current events' page on a website. Starting the trip: The thrill of getting it all in five minutes with Blogger, discovering other ways to blog, discovering I knew enough to wrap my web page around a Blogger core. Discovering the blog-techies were the PC/Unix folks of old. Same crowd, new members, different toys. Discovering law/tech/journalism/politics as professions, academic areas having glommed onto blogging. Getting into the trip: Getting good on Blogger, and starting in on Moveable Type; being drawn into techno-euphoria.Speculating on blogs as the next big thing, inviting a friend to join blog, and finding it is a form that doesn't 'take for every person, or for every application. Closer observation of who and how of blogs, including dead blogs, who doesn't blog. Finding Philip Greenspun starts up five days AFTER I do, and wondering how he will see this. Coming down and going home: Deciding, or trying to decide, which blogs of all I have visited in past weeks,on my own page. How do I want to use blogging in my work, and wondering how I can keep things simple, and not have multiple logs running in parallel, too thin. Blogs are lots of things: blogs as cliques, blogs as self-education, as self expression, as professional commentary, as trade journal, as special interest magazine, as dynamic web page; in gov't I saw a place for blogged notice and comment by the public in admin law. And another regional blog oriented to cultural landscape as in Stonewalls, Rails/Trails, Inst Cultural Landscape at the Arnold Arboretum. Blogs are people writing and reading, expressing and listening, perfoming and appreciating; Blogs as performance, as class discussion, as pure private self-expression, self-awareness. One to one, one to many, many to one, many to many. And if blogs require some sort of literacy, who is left out? And do they care if they aren't part of Club Blog? How do blogs differ from bulletin boards? (which always struck me as boring, CB radio in text, is it membership? or what? ) How different than an individually archived (if this is even possible!)instant messaging session? Like a blogged interactive interview. What makes a good blog? Why are blogs born? Why do blogs die? What's the critical mass/right balance of focus-generality/ of a blog? ie, is tge magic just enough readers to motivate writers? what should it cover? what should it not cover? My writing improves because I am aware of the time constraints of readers. I get succinct, edit for logical order. And now I am reading a history of the news, oral news, written news. In all the MY ARCHIVES DONT WORK!!!!