NANOPUBLISHING

blogs, RSS, online communities and reviewing

=my online blog for blogging about blogging=

The difference between blogs and RSS

Blogs are able to be visited. You can go to a blog or use a blog to reach out to a group of people.

RSS feeds come to you in a similar way that e-mail is accessed. You subscribe to an RSS feed and it "comes to you" as often as your aggregator retrieves the updated contents. The aggregator can be an application on your desktop or a service of a website that does the aggregating for you [like a web browser].

http://radio.weblogs.com/0106327/stories/2004/01/27/whatsTheDifferenceBetweenB.html

Blogging is a way to reach out to and research opinion formers... it begs the question "what are some of the social consequences of blogging?"

[feel free to have a blog about this in the comment section below...]

Blogs to keep your eyes on...

"Also, I'm going to start blogging! Tonight"
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/blog/

"Adam got a haircut"
http://www.adamsandler.com/index.php?section=message

More celebrity blogs...
http://www.ratatak.com/cblogs/modules/news/


Online communities and reviewing

An online community is a place in which users interact with one another online.

Online communites can be thought of in much the same way as the community where you live or study.

There are outlets for

• education and learning
• recreation
• information sharing
• communication
• online auctions and shopping
• other topics that are of interest to the Community

www.thewhitlams.com

Reviewing is a tool which allows community members to comment on and provide opinions on the community and it's related topics.

For example, reviewing is similar to reading the local newspaper in the community where you live or the local publication where you study. It provides information to the community members and allows community members to contribute to the online community.

http://www.thewhitlams.com/fow-livereview-melanie.html

Hello...? Is anybody there...?

I thought I had better get a few lines into this blog before next weeks class on blogs. I am presenting too!

I have been trying to look up a few celebrity blogs to see what news is out there or to pick up on some gossip. I was trying to look for a blog belonging to Michael Jackson and stumbled upon Michael Moore's web page where he has begun blogging himself!

I am thinking about using his blog as an example in my presentation, only I dont know how yet.

I am still not liking my job at API but it's ok becuase I know that I will be resigning in three months. I have been trying to motivate myself to write out some selection criteria for some government jobs, but it has been hell. Especially considering I cant get motivated to write my blog about nothing...

Blogs are about nothing, really, arent they? I mean, who would go to a shop to buy the contents of a blog in a printed version? It's just meaningless rambling on a topic which you have thoughts about and try to write as fast as you think to get the thoughts into print. That's all a blog is, I think.

Now I have earned my percentage point for my assessment on keeping an online journal, and I am going to bed.

Blog on! Sweet dreams.

Boy do I have the best headache remedy! One Voltaren Rapid and two Chemist Own cold and flu tablets [drowsy version]. Take those right before bed and you'll wake up in the morning feeling like a million dollars.

Im nearly getting into panic mode as I digress from doing some uni readings. But this Saturday I plan to catch up completely and get into the swing of things.

I've been thinking about writing my own book and uploading it to my website when I figure out how to get my website idea from "text" into "light".

I have had a headache for about 5 days now. It's all because of my job and sitting in front of the computer at work with no breaks. I wonder if I can claim compensation from them?

Of course it makes for an excellent excuse for my resignation letter which I plan to write soon for November.

Still havent done the readings for uni. I cant see properly due to my headaches. On top of that, I need to wear glasses to see as it is, and this morning Vince woke me up early - I got pissed off, leapt out of bed, stood on my glasses and the lens popped out.

However, due to me being a clever woman, I fixed my glasses [ironic, considering I couldnt see what I was doing] and slept some more to cure my headache.. no one wakes me up on a Sunday morning! [and my headache wasnt cured when I woke up, btw]

What is more exciting, is that I have finally finished my Saturday job working at the pharmacy. Now I only work 5 days a week in my real job [the one I plan to resign from]. So there is another sleep-in day right there!

Im going to bed now. To cure my headache.

Salutations.

Last night I played around with my blog and decided to put a comment section at the bottom of my posts. Originally I had steered clear of comments on my blogs. This was because I never intended to receive comments on my writing. Of course, deep down, I wanted some comments...eventually. I mean, why would I write otherwise? But who did I want the comments from?

When I first started journal writing in year 9 - it was so I could confess my love for Christian Slater, the actor in the movie Untamed Heart. Over time, I realised that I could write a journal and write an entry every day to read over when I was older... I did keep a journal for pretty much every year thereafter.

I had a journal for the time when I was on exchange and for the whole of year 12 and my first year of uni, and then I progressed to a big fat excercise book with hundreds of pages in it... I wrote in it as often as I remembered, and two years later had filled just about every page. I usually wrote about all the bad things that I was experiencing, or what I did on the weekend when I went out for a night on the town, who I met, who I liked and loved and who I thought was "the one".

Soon thereafter, my best friend bought me a Moleskine diary for my birthday - and then I decided to write sporadic thoughts... I wrote what the graffiti on a wall said, or poetry which I had composed. I also took my Moleskine to Sydney when I went there on a holiday - and I took it everywhere and wrote in moments of passion - such as at sunset looking at the Harbour Bridge, or on a breezy night at the Opera Bar after having drunk a bottle of Red.

Many times I have composed Haiku poetry in my phone's message facility. I found that at night I would lay in bed with a million thoughts - and I could fit three haiku's into one text message! Then I found that I had so many Haiku's stored in my phone that my message bank was full to capacity - so I transcribed them into my Moleskine and into a new excercise book which I had.

So this is my thought...

After so many years of writing with no comments posted on my writing I receive an interesting question

"So you think you can deliberately *not* write with an audience in mind? I wonder if that's possible?"

I think that before I had the capacity to understand my motivation for writing, I wrote with no audience in mind. This is not to say that I deliberately didn't write with an audience in mind - I didnt think there would be an audience to begin with.

"I think you'd have to get a truly sensual pleasure out of writing, like playing the piano when you're the only person who can hear it"

And this is an interesting point. Having played the piano for ages I never enjoyed playing for other people - I was scared that they wouldn't like what I played. But I loved playing on my own - and I felt liberated when I did.

So who did I write for? Or why did I write for so long with no audience? Because I was my own audience. I was documenting my thought process and my experiences for myself when I was older.

I really should be doing some readings for my classes... Every year - infact, every semester - I make a promise to myself that I will do my readings weekly to keep up with the rest of the class. I used to feel really guilty for spending time online when I should be studying, but look at me! I can do my work online and not feel so bad after all!

So what has happened today? It rained - which was nice. I went to work. Came home. Had dinner, and then spoke with Vince about our trip to Italy. He thinks it is going to "make us or break us" so we'll see!

Tim Freedman is coming to Perth next month, and I think I might do my assignment on his solo concert/DVD release. I am excited about seeing him again and getting inspred to dust of my piano and start playing again.

I have been meaning to get back into my piano for a while now, and I would like to start having lessons again. I thought that I would have more time once I was settled into my working life - only things are probably more crazy now than ever before. Working offers no flexibility like uni. I dont think I like working very much.

Anyways, back to Tim... I mean - my assignment... My last gig review was posted on www.thewhitlams.com and I even have my own URL [I think that's what it is called] http://www.thewhitlams.com/fow-livereview-melanie.html

It's getting cold in the laundry/study now - so I'm going to fill up my hot water bottle and go to bed to read.

.....KD Lang has a Hymn cd?? What the!?

Well hello hello!

Today was Tuesday again, and I had classes at uni as well as having to head off to work in the middle of the day. Im living "la vida loca" - the crazy life - as Ricky Martin would put it.

Oh how a blog can be incomplete until there is a quote from Ricky Martin!

So here I am writing for the sake of writing. I know I should really write more often in my cyber space - only it's become difficult because of two reasons 1] I dont have the Internet at work which sucks, cos that means that I have to pretend to be busy when I'm not 2] since I moved the computer out of my bedroom and into the laundry/study - I havent felt like going on the computer all that much... I've decided to resolve the issue and buy a laptop/notebook... it would feel more personal than sitting in the cold laundry late at night.

I got thinking today about blogging - which happens to be my topic for a class presentation I have to do. I noticed that my tutor had added a link to my blog on his own blog page - and then I thought "ok... have I written some crap or what? I think I need to do a spot of editing"...

It got me thinking about what the purpose of a blog is. I wonder how many people use blogs in the same way they would write a private journal? Is there information in a blog that one might leave out knowing that the public at large has access to their thoughts? Is there a secret hope that a private blog might be "found" and secrets let out?

This leads me onto two tangents... 1] blogs are private spots to write personal thoughts for the public to read when you maintain an anonymous persona 2] if your anonymous persona and your actual being are recognised as the one entity - and you know you are being "watched" or "read" [as the case may be] does this influence what you might include in their writing?

I just thought of another tangent... this is the academic in me... blogs that are written with a known "audience" are obviously tailored to that audience. The entity knows that the writing will be "read" and their progress "watched" so they almost purposely design text for the audience. Ha ha! Just like I have done tonight...

So more to the point then - the real purpose of a blog as I intend - is to write what the hell you want to write. At the same time be sure to aviod at all costs your audience recognising themselves being described in your blog and the possible defamation suits to follow!