blogging is still a bit foreign to most

As someone who blogs, I read a lot about the medium. I hear how much the blogosphere is exploding, and I stay up-to-date with the latest innovations and changes to the media landscape. I find it exciting as hell, and it's easy to get carried away and think that life doesn't exist beyond the internet.

But for most people, life is pretty much the same as it was before the "blog revolution", and the effects of blogging are mostly invisible. Blogging is getting a fair amount of attention in the media, but it's still very possible to go through your days without worrying about the blogosphere. It is reminiscent of the early days of email, when you would struggle to explain to non-users why you might want to send somebody an "electronic note". Why wouldn't you just pick up the phone, they'd say. To non-bloggers, the idea of publishing your thoughts online is even more foreign. Keeping your favourite links on your blog? Why not just use bookmarks? They work just fine.

When email first came around, I was the first of my group of friends to have an address. And for a brief time, before absolutely EVERYBODY jumped on board, there was a perception that email was a bit dorky. It was hard to understand why you'd want to write letters to friends that you probably talk regularly already. Email retrieved the letter, long obsolesced by the telephone, and it made people uncomfortable for a while.

And now blogging is retrieving the town crier, the speaker's corner, the letter to the editor, the pamplet. All of these things are even more foreign to people today than the letter was in the 90s. So understandably, it may take a while for the masses to get on board the blogtrain.