Through the Lens: the blogging process (or, Notes from the Blogface) - Part 1

So, this blogging thing is pretty big now, huh! Well, I was curious having recently read articles and papers to really dig into this process that is blogging.

In this rant, I don`t intend to throw out an opinion on blogging, more to chew the fat on blogging a little deeper and record a blogging process. So I said to myself, `Self, I should note done in detail my own blogging process in preparing a blog post as I would, any other day.`

So, this is my story, from the blogface!

I log into my blog and open a second browser window in preparation to search the web as needed (AlltheWeb is my preferred engine).

I swivel around in my chair and grab an article I had scanned recently, by Ferdig and Trammell, on content delivery in this ?thing? called the Blogosphere. I begin to read the article more deeply and with a purpose, which is, to reference my upcoming blog post on blogs. As I read, I take up my fluoro-green highlighter pen and begin highlighting phrases and comments that stand out for me, and in addition, I jot down comments in the margin with my pen. I note in the article, extensive reference to Blood (2002). Swivelling back to my computer station, I type `R. Blood` into my search engine. Missed. Results returned referred to something about W.A.T.E.R. Blood...not what I envisaged at all! I refine my search a second time, after reviewing the reference in the article once again, to read `weblog handbook`. Bingo! Lots of Amazon links and all sorts of reviews. Things look very promising.

A quick scan through the first page of search results and I notice a Slashdot article with a partial line `...time weblogger Rebecca Blood`s The Weblog Handbook`. I have a name. Rebecca Blood was a blogger. It would be most interesting to see her blog then!

I scan the list of search results looking for interesting phrases, when a heading catches my eye `a romantic view of weblogs`, the summary concludes:

Rebecca Blood`s The Weblog Handbook is an inexorably romantic guide to building and...

I must read more! I click (my AlltheWeb preferences are set to open search results in a new browser window) and up pops a book review on Blood`s book, at HYPERTEXT|NOW| by Eastgate Systems Inc. It looks fairly legit to me. I scroll slowly through the review. A couple of quotes from Blood`s book punctuate the article and already I`m thinking that this is worth printing! I scroll quickly through to the end of the page and note with a smile that the author, Mark Bernstein, also has a blog!

I hit the print button in my browser (no sign of the oft-present 'print this page' icon) and hear the networked printer groan to life down the corridor. At this point I think to myself, `Self, now is probably a good time to actually check out this book by Blood, at Amazon.com`. The HYPERTEXT|NOW| review links directly to it.

Wow! Before I even notice the book by Blood on the Amazon page, I see a screen full of books related to the art of blogging! How can this be? Surely blogging is still fairly new isn`t it? Perhaps there is call to be alert to the hubbub that is blogging!