Why be a blogger or a bloggee?

The word "network" can refer to a human network, media (as in TV network), technology (like the Internet), math, science, biology, and other (transportation, for example). I like to think that blogs represent the best of all types of networks, connecting humans through technology and media to knowlege and other places just not possible a hundred years ago, when your neighborhood buddies served as the only network you knew.

My dedication to visiting blogs began several years ago. I learn of blogs through following the trails of assorted referrals, links, and searches. According to the blog search engine Technorati at http://technorati.com/ , there were 71 million blogs as of May 2007 (that would be 71 million and 1 as of June 4 when I started mine). I am, in my face-to-face life, an avid networker, who keeps in touch with people, who introduces people, and who can always find a resource for a question or a problem. Blogging, I’ve decided, is the ultimate in networking.

As I wander through the blogosphere, I began noticing what made me return to a blog. I would revisit blogs if I liked the writing style, sense of humor, graphics, links, and/or content. It was a very personal mix. For example, one of the first blogs I discovered was through searching for a book online. I learned of an author of French style books—Anne Barone (http://www.annebarone.com/) So I searched for her name, found her web site, found her blog, and I visit it several times a week for her take on politics (she is a liberal, educated well-traveled middle aged woman who lives in a small Texas town, I tend to agree with her views), diet, the French people and culture, American eating habits, and her many links to interesting articles in a variety of national and international publications. From her site, I spread out to an international community of Francophiles (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/French_Chic/ ) where I learned of a couple of blogs over the years that have since become daily additions (http://shoeblogs.com/ and http://french-word-a-day.typepad.com/ ). Through the Artella Daily Muse online newspaper (http://www.artelladailymuse.com/ ), just today I learned of this nifty site at http://globalideasbank.org/site/home/ I have signed up, and will, I’m sure, find all sorts of interesting and useful (not always the same thing) information and ideas. I also turn up new authors as well from my blog visits. Recent finds include E.M. Delafield and Manuel Vazquez Montalban. I regularly visit blogs of agents, writers, publishers, public relations professionals, artists—this is just as important to me as a writer as reading the Wall Street Journal is to an investment broker. I hope that for many of you, you’ll return because you like my writing, share a similar sense of humor, find useful information, new books to read, get inspired, and decide this small part of the blog community is a place you like to visit.

A small sample du jour of my blog favorites:
Away with words—a writer’s thoughts and insights at http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/
A small publisher—devoted to books at http://www.habitualreader.com/
Insight into a literary agent’s pet peeves at http://misssnark.blogspot.com/ (note this site closed as an official blog in May, but it remains available as a good reference tool for writers)
An artist who works in art collages—my new passion, at http://www.intuitivecreativity.typepad.com/
Start your day off right at http://parisbreakfasts.blogspot.com/