Blogging and the age of Social Media

So I have started my own blog, http://movmin.blogspot.com/. Aptly named Movie Minutes, it provides bite sized bits and reviews of the latest movies hitting the screens. It's my very first so, I'm still trying to tweak how it looks, and getting used to the weblog template tools available to me.

When I was first assigned this task, I was thinking, "Oh no, I'm gonna have to do a 16 year old girl's Dear Diary," And then it hit me, blogging is very much similar to being a columnist in your daily broadsheet. I love film and the art behind the development of a great movie. Why not contribute my own critiques and publish them online?

Blogging first started to gain popularity in the early 2000s. Individuals have many reasons to blog, some seek fame, some seek attention, some need the space to vent, and some use it as an avenue for business like blogshops which are very popular here. Funny terms started to crop up when I googled the term blog. For example:

Blogosphere: The collective community of all blogs.
Bloggies Awards: One of the most popular blog awards.
Photoblog: A blog containing mostly photos uploaded constantly and chronologically.
Vlog: A video blog.
Moblog: A blog featuring posts sent by mobile phone.

For the full list please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogroll#B

So much to learn! So little time! I'm 32 years old and always thought blogging was for the younger Gen Y crowd. I was pleasantly surprised to find a vast variety of blogs available online, some were interesting reads, some were political, and some were just down right nasty. Adding to that, most of the top blogs are written by The Ancients (People very much in my age group and some older).

Writing and designing a blog was pretty much like being in charge of your own magazine article. You get to design how it looks, you can change the fonts, colours, backgrounds and layout. You may include pictures, videos, and even links to your favourite websites. Thanks to the handy software provided, these tasks are really easy and can be done by almost anyone.

Fast forward to today. Enter the realm of Facebook and Twitter. Social media has taken the world by storm and in my next post, I'll delve deeper into what it is and how it has changed the way we work, live and play.

Image Source: The Funny Times, Ban The Spam
References: Wikipedia's Glossary of Blogging