"Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, Blog......"

“Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, Blog………….”

I had not imagined myself writing a blog.  The “hows” and the “whys” presented seemingly impossible obstacles, even if the motivation had been strong.  The barriers of personal and private seemed reason enough to leave well alone,…..and, what did I have to say anyway?

Now my feet are wet I see it’s not so daunting, and one of the unexpected benefits has been the urge to explore the landscape of the “blogosphere” while I’m out here.

In 2011 there were estimated to be 156 million public blogs

I know it's Wikipedia, but for this I trust it

Once the convention of the journal and the social forum took digital shape in the early to mid 1990’s it was just a matter of time before the blog emerged as a dot com bonus.  Whoever the pioneers were, the genre had a name before the end of the millennium.  “Weblog was coined in late 1997 by Jorn Barger and jokingly divided into “we blog” within two years by programmer Peter Merholtz.  (No matter that it sounds awfully similar to “bog” with the implications that word has in the “English”
English language!....you can look that one up.)

For a time line of the unfolding history of the blog I found this site very handy, 

New York News and Features

Since that recent and oh so long ago time, the blog has matured and mushroomed to embrace its own kingdom on the World Wide Web, morphing in new and imaginative ways and spinning off its own concepts and players, expressed in its own vernacular, “blogdex”, blogrolls, Blogscope, vlog, Phlog, moblog, MyBlogLog….the list is endless. 

Just as a blog can be seen as a small web site, Twitter is a small blog

The History Web Blog:

It seems that if most serious academic historians have kept a conservative relationship with the Web as Cohen and Rosenzweig note, many have been drawn by the attraction of the blog with its informality and friendly simplicity.  Traditional conventions can slide, wide ranging topics can be explored and ideas can be freely wielded.  It’s fun!   

In my “internet diving” for fascinating history blogs I came across an interesting web site dedicated to the topic called  "The History Blogging Project".

In early 2011 The Universities of Oxford and Roehampton collaborated with The Institute of Historical Research at the University of London to explore the potentials of bogging for postgraduate history students.  The result is a sort of group blog site that discusses the issues involved.  From here I somehow Googled my way to one of the history blogs that got my attention:

Review No 1: 

"The History Blog"

Here “Livius”, aka Roman historian  "Livy", promises “not to suck” and gives no other modern identification.  In contrast to “sucking” there are many things about the blog that I greatly admire. 

• From a design angle it manages to pull off both intrigue and clarity, something that I can now appreciate as I paraded all the Blogger templates around my own word offerings, finding them all to be lacking in some feature.  “The History Blog” utilizes an attractive aged page template that creates an atmosphere of antiquity.  Though many articles are from the modern period, this background nicely unites the wide-ranging topics.  Another unity is achieved by the intriguing nature of the stories that are chosen. 
• The font looks like Times New Roman, (very appropriate) and the text is kept simple and is interspersed with well sized thumbnail photographs and other illustrations which can be pulled up in all their graphic glory should the user desire.  In long articles some print is also inset to create variety and help the reader “bookmark” areas of the page for ease of use.  The author is not afraid of length, fully fleshing out his engaging human stories in an informal but informative style.  He uses hypertext sparingly but to great effect, as you’ll see when you  Scroll down to "she's almost done" well down on the linked page.
• Other considerations of aesthetics and usability include the attractive banner and simple choice of color which, along with the page template, bear witness to all entries in order to create a pleasing unity; and the clearly demarked but low key navigation aids.  The latter includes a nicely hierarchical list with business first, handy topics next, an easy to find SEARCH box and the archive directory to follow.  These all span a slice of the left side of the “page”, leaving the text with a good margin of space so that the site is not cluttered or confusing.  Looking at the list suggests that this is an enduring blog.
• The success of this blog is not achieved by the author alone, and I admire that he or she gives up-front credit and public praise to the web guru, technician and artist who gave form to the authors desires.  Would that we were all so fortunate! History Blog, Thanks and Praise

More soon.....and this is still working on week 1!