Who was the first ever blogger ? A Babylonian ? Jesus Christ? A Slav? No one?
Finding the answer to this question relies on going through a process almost identical to that of blogging: filtering through a mass of information and picking the most interesting and important results.
However, this question may be made irrelevant by the mass of blogs, numbering millions, of which only very few have surfaced and have risen to fame in the mainstream media; and the ever changing landscape withing the internet.
What defines a blog, has changed over the years, especially after the invention of Blogger.com, a tool for mass producing blogs, which as consequence made blogs very similar to each other and created the standard for how a blog would be like.
The New York Times names Justin Hall as the first blogger, the creator of Links.net, a website providing links and a place where Justin talks about himself.
Perhaps the answer to the question which is most true is no one, since the opinions on who is the first ever blogger are as numerous as the blogs themselves.
In the past 8 years blogging has changed with an avalanche of political blogs, opinionated anonymous blogs and what not, while others are trying to bring forward their opinions and advertisments through their blogs.
Having an edge on the other bloggers has become so difficult and short-lived that the history of blogging has become so murky and geeky that the importance of a blog and blogger may be nothing more that an accident.
So, anyone could become the first blogger, if they invent a new blogging system, earn 20 million and earn the privilege of being bought by Google.
1 comments:
Really like the way you open this post, Paul, and I like the way you build a link between finding out who was the first blogger and blogging itself, via the idea of information filtering. As the post goes on, your argument/point gets a little less clear. You're definitely right that the advent of Blogger brought a kind of standardisation to the idea and practice of blogging... At the same time, since then, people, or rather, groups of users have found new uses for blogging and have managed to redefine the form. As you say, the definition of a blog has changed a lot. I'm not sure how much it will continue to change. I have a feeling it's now been incorporated into the media's business as usual... But I may be wrong.
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