Thing 3

For my first “real” blog post, I thought I’d write a little bit about setting up this blog, and the process of blogging in general.

I’ve actually had a personal blog since my freshman year of college.  All of my friends at that time were using the Xanga blogging service, so I’ve had an account there for years now.  One by one, my college friends have moved to other services or dropped the blogging habit entirely, so I’m now one of the few left on Xanga.  In the past year or so, I’ve been considering a move to a more sophisticated blogging platform.  Blogger is probably the leading contender, but who knows – maybe doing 23 Things will sell me on the advantages of WordPress for my personal blogging needs.

For me, blogging has always been about the social aspect.  In the collegiate glory days of Xanga, my group of friends all subscribed to each others’ blogs and would read and comment on them obsessively.  Blogging was a primary means of communication, even though most of us lived down the hall from each other in the dorms!  Since graduating, blogging has become more about keeping up with each others’ lives as we’ve been scattered to different cities.  A blog is like a Christmas letter that goes on all year – between their blogs and their Facebook pages, I have a pretty good idea of where all my friends are living and what they’re doing, even if I haven’t spoken to them in months or even longer.  Some people might bemoan the lack of direct, “real” human contact that these technological innovations foster, but I think it’s more good than bad.  When I finally see my friends again, instead of having to spend hours catching up on each others’ lives, we can jump right in.  It makes me feel like we were never separated.  And who has time to call or e-mail these days anyway?  I would rather stay in touch in superficial ways online than lose contact entirely.

Some advantages of WordPress (as compared to Xanga) that I have already noticed:  the automatic draft saving feature (when I think of all the posts I’ve lost over the years on Xanga . . . ), the customizable header image, and the ability to add categories and tags.  Blogger has many of these features, too, so I will probably have a difficult time deciding between them.  The real advantage of Blogger, for me at least, is its relationship with Google.  I already use Gmail and have an iGoogle homepage (with Google Reader, news, weather, etc.), so having everything “in one place” online is very appealing.