Issue Date: November 2, 2003
What's your blog?
Blogs are proliferating on the Internet the way baggy clothes took over teenagers' closets. These days, it seems everyone is typing an online journal: nannies, tourists, CEOs, celebrities. To glimpse what it's like to live the life of a young, gorgeous tennis star, go to Kournikova.com (click on "Journal"). Comic Margaret Cho updates her blog at Margaretcho.com with shocking confessions, about things such as her chronic athlete's foot problem, several times a week (warning: foul language).
Getting started is easier than ever. You can create your own at Blogger.com or Diarist.net, or join a community of bloggers: Gothamist.com dispenses the opinions of a group of New Yorkers on technology, crime and the media; Photographica.org is a place for shutterbugs to post their work. Whatever you're into, chances are someone's uploading it this very minute. At iWorkwithFools.com, for example, disgruntled employees the world over complain about incompetent bosses, annoying co-workers and jobs where there's nothing to do.
Blogging Network (bloggingnetwork.com) is one of the few sites that actually pay their members. A portion of your monthly fee ($5.95) goes to individual bloggers, depending on which ones you read. It's essentially a popularity contest: A widely read blogger collects; one who writes uninspired drivel stays broke. The site is conveniently categorized into topics like World, Fiction and Food.
Blogs are opinionated and highly personal -- some include embarrassing details about real people -- so it's not uncommon to see "flame wars" break out. If you aren't the one being flamed, reading the heated exchanges can be entertaining. And because drawing an audience pays at Blogging Network, the competition is fierce. As the author of Jill's Opinions, a blog that comments on the site's fights, put it, "This is the Internet's version of a reality show."
-- Christina Wood
|
