A Decade Of Blogging

The blog turns 10 this week apparently. Perhaps in its current template form, given that the whole concept of logging ideas, updates and rants on the web in plain, vanilla HTML pages definitely predates 1999.  Whenever and however it exploded, I am glad it did, as seen in how the weblog and forthcoming social media tools have helped people all over the world get stories out alongside reporting by the mainstream media. Especially these folks in India, where the social web is not flat:

Peter Griffin’s and Dina Mehta’s South East Asia Earthquake & Tsunami Blog expertly coordinated mounds of information about the globe-spanning tragedy and from a variety of sources. “Without any hesitation, discussion or question, Rohit Gupta and I began blogging, working in real-time with real people wearing their hearts on their sleeves.”

Gaurav Mishra’s role in Vote Report India, a citizen-powered election monitoring tool. “An idea that started off with the Mumbai terrorist attack has come full circle to be realized during the Lok Sabha elections. We are far from done, however.”

Two days before the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina & The Federal Flood, I don’t have to tell you how important blogs and their bloggers have been in “[collaborating] to post information and resources for the larger community” as well as helping keep that community together emotionally and spiritually, if not in the geographic sense. We are far from done, too.