When I first heard of the word ‘blog’, it was in 2003, and at the time I had no idea what it was. Somehow in my mind, it registered as ‘blob’, which of course is short for ‘big large object’ – a data type for certain databases. It wasn’t until I asked someone about this new term that I found out that it was short for web-log. Now my first thought was, “Oh well, this is just like an online diary or a website that you can post your thoughts to”, and in a certain way I guess that’s what they are.
Well, fast forward to the present, 2005. ‘Blog’ is the next ‘big’ thing on the internet, people are jumping in the trend and blogging everywhere. Blogger of course is one of the largest blogging services around. I had to ask myself, “why is this such a big thing?”. After all, aren’t blogs still used by the majority of people as some sort of online diary?
I’ve been watching this trend for awhile now, and I’ve seen people start use blogs in a different way. They’re using it as a form of professional communication between people, corporations, places and various entities of society. It’s grown to be a totally different beast altogether. It has spawned new technologies such as RSS, Wiki’s, various blog monitoring tools etc., and also re-defined the way people communicate online.
A blog can be used by companies to act as a voice to their customers, and vice versa allow them to track what people are saying about certain products, and thus allow speeding up of business reaction time.
This new way of communication has opened up a new field of jobs. There is a huge demand for people who can communicate well with people through what they write / post online. Companies will hire people who can act as their face / voice online, to communicate with other entities that are talking about the company / business.
I was just browsing the web, and found this weblogs inc article about making money by using blogs. It also had some blogging jobs available for people who could write about various topics of interest.
A good example of how blogging has become a source of income is this: I’ve literally followed what Jeremy Wright has done since he started Ensight. Reason for this? He was my former IT manager, and I just wanted to know what was going on in his life. The easiest way to do this was to follow his blog. I’ve watched him grow to be a very popular person in the blogsphere, from his Ebay auction of his blogging services which ended up at more than US$3300 to his blog consulting company, InsideBlogging where he acts as a blog consultant for companies, helping them determine whether blogging is for them or not, as well as help them out with anything related to blogging.
So, is blogging a bona fide job in today’s world? I do believe so, although it might take some time for people to catch on to this trend. I also believe that it’s not going to be as big as traditional jobs in IT or business because blogging is about good communication skills, and not many people have these in abundance. It also requires a lot of creativity in writing and communicating thoughts, again I’m not too sure many people have this. But for the people who are great at doing this, blogging provides a great job; they could work from home, the only requirement being a PC / laptop and a creative mind.
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