For a general definition of blogging: You should be asking for help on puzzling problems. You should be tagging your best pictures on flickr. You should be getting recognition for your genius and hard work, as well as business, money, priceless feedback, and readers who one day may become friends. You should be sharing the things you learned so other people will learn from them and maybe teach you something new. You should be entertaining the rest of us; and we will return the favor.
Here, your audience is unbounded in space and time. Yes, your writing will last forever — get used to it.
Sarcastic Lovin'...
...especially in Germany where we now have an Act of Parliament that each and every webpage has to be archived by national Library for ages.
As I get older I have been thinking about this too. How can the world see "a life well lived"
What do most people leave behind? The only tangible thing for so many is the tombstone with an epitaph and a newspaper clipping from an (paid) obiturary. And only their immediate family even know their biography.
The problem I have with electronic media is how long will electronic media last? Will electronic media or internet last as long and be readable as the Gutenburg Bible? 600 years? Where does one ensure that their "life well lived" is universially available. Who pays for the storage of all of these biographies. Will they disappear if someone fails to pay for storage?
Three barriers to any writing having real posterity: 1) it must be in an open format, or it will be (close to) useless when the programs that interpret that format go kaput, 2) it must be great and timeless, or no one in the future will even bother to read it, 3) it must be archived, or a catastrophe could wipe it out.
Interesting you should mention the Gutenburg Bible, oj, in light of Project Gutenberg.
Yes, your writing may last forever, but for the vast majority of people, no one will care, and no one will read it.
Dear Anonymous,
You're right: most people will never care about your post, the same way most people never care about any particular subject matter. However, there will always be some people for whom your post was exactly what they were looking for.
Google and the semantic web will ensure that the people who want to see your post will always find it and few others.
I agree entirely. You can see how your writings and posts help others days/months/weeks/years down the line. ted, are ©1995-2005 Eric A. and Kathryn S. Meyer. All Rights Reserved.
"Just look at popular forums - using the search feature, you can find answers to questions that were asked a very long time ago.
Your writings help move the world and in return, it helps move you.
I found that when I was blogging, I was wasting my life. I shouldn't be entertaining the rest of the world, and that doesn't really add that much to the world.
Dear Anonymous,
What kinds of things were you blogging? There's definitely some blogs the follow the "Today, I did laundry, then I took a nap" train of thought. These probably don't have quite the lasting value of the intellectually questioning ones.
Here's what i read plastered on a car In INDIA-"weblogs are a nuisance"(especially confessional ones)
"A nuisance"?!
Then don't read them!