Wednesday, July 03, 2002

 
I have joined +S and nasha Dasha on LiveJournal; this doesn't mean that I am abandoning you on Blogger -- they are different tools for different purposes. Let me explain.

LiveJournal has the excitement ICQ had three or four years ago, and SixDegrees in its brief incarnation. It is for people, mostly young people, or at least young at heart, with an impulse to express themselves, explore, reach out. There is a sense that you are not signing up for a service as much as joining a community, if only a community of communities. And the notion of community is a bit different.

Anyone can read this blog, but to post on it you have to be invited, respond to the invitation, and fill out the registration. To post an entry you have to be somewhat nerdish, or at least comfortable with nerdischkeit. This is perhaps suited to something like Between the Worlds, which is based on a definite vision, that which created the First Hour journal and mailing list. On Live Journal the expectation is that everyone is a distinct center of interest. To see the postings of all +Seraphim's friends, you go to his page and click on his friends, and you will see everything his friends have posted in chronological order. Inevitably he will have LiveJournal friends who would have no interest in First Hour, and whose postings would not be appropriate for either First Hour or Between the Worlds. He already has friends who are not mine, and I have friends who are not his, and ditto for Dasha, and that is how it should be. Each of us is the center of her (or his) own world.

Classical blogging is more top-down. People start blogs because they have a point of view they are moved to share, often one not well regarded by the general culture, and likeminded blogsters link to each other's blogs and respond to each other's postings. There is an active conservative Catholic blog community, which our Gerard refers to as St. Blog's parish, well represented by himself and by the Old Oligarch's Painted Stoa. The group blogs, like this one, tend to be run by folks who have a common commitment. Libertarian Samizdata is a good example.

At least that's the way I see it.

And as it will soon be the fourth of July, check out this message from, not National but Rational Review.
posted by arisbe 11:17 PM