Blogs, or Web logs, are all the rage. Not long ago, people began giving their e-mail address as part of their contact information. Now an increasing number of "netizens" are starting to include the URL to their blogs as well.
Most of these are simple diaries packed with photos of the blogger's pet and are interesting only if you know the author personally -- and even then, often not. Others are scurrilous tell-alls that leave you wondering who's behind the keyboard.
But a few bloggers have managed to separate themselves from the pack, become serious cultural and political interlocutors and in the process have sparked a war between "old media" and "hobby hacks."
The most recent casualty in this war is CBS Nightly News. The program aired a report in which they produced what were supposedly decades-old documents regarding US President George W. Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service. The documents painted an unflattering portrait of Bush and an army of right-wing bloggers descended on them.
They quickly discovered irregularities in the documents: syntax that was not used by the National Guard and typesetting that didn't exist in the early 1970s. The bloggers were able to find experts to corroborate their findings and the news was devoured by increasingly bigger media fish.
High-profile bloggers like Matt Drudge, who broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal, posted the news on their sites and from there it made its way onto Fox News. The pressure built and, days later, CBS retracted the report, saying they could no longer vouch for the documents' authenticity. Bloggers 1, Old Media 0.
There are indications that some serious bloggers are gaining mainstream acceptance, or at least that they can no longer be ignored. Both the Democrat and Republican conventions issued passes to some three dozen lucky bloggers and crammed them into a small area in the rafters. A few A-list bloggers whose sites get hundreds of thousands of hits each month are profiting from it.
Joshua Micah Marshall, a columnist for the The Hill, earns a reported US$10,000 a month in advertising revenue for his blog, Talking Points Memo. Glenn Reynold's blog, Instapundit.com, is said to be a daily must-read among White House staff. Veteran political reporters R.W. Apple Jr. and Jack Germond both recently posed for the cover of New York Times Magazine, peering curiously over the shoulder of Ana Marie Cox, a blogger better known as Wonkette. These are the exceptions, of course. There are more than 2 million Americans with blogs, according to that same Times Magazine article.
The vast majority aren't read by anyone except their authors' closest friends. It's no wonder when there are so many blogs with titles like "Page One of My Life" or "The World According to Me." These bloggers might be commended for their candor, though. After all, what blog isn't the world according to the person doing the blogging?
Blogging, for better or worse, has offered a way for the masses to have their say. And with fairly recent innovations and improvements, it's easier than ever for Joe Pundit to get his blog up and running in a matter of minutes.
Two of the most popular software platforms for blogging are Moveable Type and Blogger. Blogger came first in 1999 as a product of Pyra Labs. They created it as a side project to something they've since abandoned, and it took off. In 2002, the company caught the attention of Google, which bought it. Then it really took off.
Blogger offers a three-step process to setting up your site: 1) create an account 2) name your blog and 3) choose a template.
Movable Type is the platform that drives many of the more "serious" blogs. It was authored by a married couple in the same year that Google bought Blogger. The software is more fandangled than Blogger but can do more. In order to accommodate legions of would-be pundits who can't program a VCR, Movable Type offers TypePad, which is similar to Blogger. If you're interested in keeping a simple online journal and sharing photos, either will work well for you. If you think you might like to add a lot of bell and whistles, go with Movable Type.
Or course, truly serious geeks -- the A-list bloggers that started the whole craze -- go it alone. And as you might have guessed, Taiwan has its share of geeks.
Paul Jones has been living in Taiwan on and off since 1991. His blog, "Stodgy White Guy," has archive entries dating back to 1997 -- before any of the three-step blogs came along.
"At first, I just did it because I was learning about Web site design and development and it was my way of learning," he said in an interview (via email, naturally). "And it gave me the chance to keep the family back home updated on things."
Jones' blog forgoes punditry in favor of a personal account of living in Taiwan. Still, he says, it has had an impact on his life off-line, including job offers. Check out his "clean and efficient" site and you'll see why.
"I just wish this stuff was around the first time I came to Taiwan in 1991," he said. "It would have helped to know what it's like to live in Taiwan, and Taiwan-related blogs have more about that than any guide book will tell you."
Check out some of the best of Taiwan's English-language blogs at the addresses provided in the information box.
A short list of local blogs
* Stodgy White Guy
http://www.livingintaiwan.com/swg/default.asp
* Paogao's Journal
http://www.poagao.org/pjournal.htm
* The Taipei Kid
http://www.wannabemyfriend.com/
Rants and raves about Taipei plus false childhood memories.
* 3Q2U
http://3q2u.com/ http://3q2u.com/
Quirky investigations into life in Asia.
* Life of Brian
http://briandavidphillips.typepad.com/
Trance, hypnosis, interactive drama, LARP, 3D, love, passion, fantasy, games, other stuff.
* Scott Sommer's Taiwan Weblog
http://scottsommers.blogs.com/taiwanweblog/
A forum for the discussion of scholarly opinions on issues related to language and language education.
* A Better Tomorrow
http://www.bokane.org/abtom/archives/pictures/index.html
* Taiwan Tiger
http://jackson.typepad.com/taiwantiger/
* Anarchy in Taiwan
http://www.livejournal.com/users/gotmahmojo/
* Made in Taiwan
http://madeintaiwan.blogspot.com/
Notes from a small island.
* Robot Action Boy
http://robotactionboy.blogspot.com
The past, the present, the future and spaces in between.
* Chewin in the Chung
http://chaon.blogspot.com/ http://chaon.blogspot.com/
News and Views from Taichung
* Unbalanced Vision
http://www.rachellin.com/
* One Backpack
http://blog.onebackpack.com/
RESOURCES
* http://www.blogger.com/start
* http://www.movabletype.org/
* http://www.blogsearchengine.com
* http://www.blog.idv.tw/
(for searching Chinese-language blogs)
* http://www.blogarama.com/
* http://blogcritics.org/index.php
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