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theory on demand
everyone publishes and participates. However, this should not be understood as a matter of who can publish on the web but also what can be published. There is no longer a hierarchy of what is important since everything has the same value – be it a major disaster or a kitten – they both have the same publishing value when it comes to publishing on the web. Therefore the web is radically decentralized, as O’Reilly states. Furthermore, the new web technologies are another major factor, which allowed these to happen. Then, the question is how these relate to blogs and blogging – or an indirect question would be are blogs merely personal pages? As stated earlier, medium and the content should be seen inseparable. Therefore, we cannot define a blog simply by referring to its being personal, which is why I referred to the technologies that blogs make use a moment ago. Blogs are powered by dynamic programming languages such as PHP or ASP and databases (SQL). This way, the blog is updated easily and instantly: anything written in a post is immediately stored in the database and appears on the blog. As an advantage of using dynamic programming languages, blogs can export or offer the data they have in various ways for various uses. XML is one of these ways, and it can be used for syndication feeds like RSS or Atom. With the help of syndication, anything that is posted is immediately available to users without the need for checking the website to see what is new. Several web services that check the activity on blogs, such as Technorati or Google’s Blog Search, make the blogs even more accessible. Readers can also leave comments to the posts Trackbacks or pings, which is a way to inform another blog when there is a hyperlink to that blog is a way that establishes the social links between blogs. XFN, which is short for XHTML Friends Network, can be used as another example to how blogs function as forms of social web. As the developers define it, XFN “is a simple way to represent human relationships using hyperlinks” (XFN)3, and this HTML tool developed mainly for blog users works by defining links with social relationships. As stated earlier concerning social web that it is about making connections and forming relationships; trackbacks and XFN hyperlinks form organic links between different blogs. Consequently, blogs should not be thought separated from the technologies that allowed it to happen. The characteristics, as has been and will be discussed, reflect that blogs make use of various technologies together with the new attitude of Web 2.0, show that blogging is a social way of writing. 2. So What Are Blogs? The discussion so far hints certain characteristics of blogs and blogging. However, I will skip building the argument on that discussion and move onto what others say about blogs and blogging. In a survey conducted by me, I asked bloggers certain questions to understand what blogging is according to them and why they blog. Below are some excerpts from the answers4 given to questions on blogging by these bloggers, where each paragraph shows a separate reply: Basically, it’s a way to record my own history. A compilation of the things I liked, delicious stuff I tasted and an album to remember afterwards. Blogging is simply telling. Telling a story of your life, of someone’s life or something you like.
3. XFN. “XFN – XHTML Friends Network.” 4. The survey was conducted in May 2008 by the author, Alper Utku Sarıkaya, for the graduate course Image Time and Motion II at Media and Visual Studies MA program at Bilkent University. It consisted of questions regarding blogging and how bloggers perceive blogging, and the purpose of the survey was to find out answers to these questions. The survey was conducted online with 20 anonymous participants, who were between 18 and 30 years of age.