Some­times I say some­thing to some­one in jest, and it’s only later that I real­ize just how true it is.

Today’s edi­tion: “Because I’ve got­ten too lazy to actu­ally visit web pages anymore”

In par­tic­u­lar, I’m think­ing of what some would call the “RSS Rev­o­lu­tion.” Those of us who aren’t quite as apt to latch on to catch phrases might describe it as a change to subscription-based deliv­ery. I only recently set up a feed reader, but I think I’m begin­ning to under­stand what every­body is so excited about. It’s def­i­nitely dif­fer­ent to be able to get the lat­est updates from a bunch of web sites almost in real time instead of keep­ing a folder of book­marks that would get checked weekly at most.

Even before I uttered this remark­ably poignant state­ment, I’d been think­ing about the nature of blog­ging. I remem­ber being floored about a year ago when I was talk­ing with my par­ents and tried to explain what a “web log” was, only to get the reply “we know what blogs are.” Back in the day, blog­ging was some­thing only done by geeks like me. Back then, I called it a “news” page, and was under the redicu­lous impres­sion that peo­ple actu­ally read it. This time around, I started out think­ing that the only per­son who would read it would be me. I was pretty shocked when I found out that at least one of my friends does read it.

Even stranger, a lot of my friends keep blogs. I don’t know what inspires them to do it, since it seems every­one who does has a dif­fer­ent rea­son, and they’ve never broached the sub­ject pub­li­cally. I think the rea­son I’m doing it this time around is just because it’s a fun exer­cise to try to turn a bunch of jum­bled thoughts about a sub­ject into a coher­ent arti­cle. It’s also pretty handy to have a place to rant when I’m feel­ing par­tic­u­larly irked about some­thing. For me, writ­ing was always some­thing I dreaded. Now it’s sur­pris­ingly addic­tive. From what I’ve read, it seems like a lot of other peo­ple have found that they enjoy writ­ing when it’s in the form of a blog.

What­ever the rea­sons peo­ple use to jus­tify putting their thoughts and feel­ings on a web page (and RSS feed!), the fact that they’re doing it is, in my opin­ion, an impor­tant shift in how soci­ety is work­ing. A diary used to be some­thing that you never let any­one read; I remem­ber that they even sold diary books with locks on them. Now it’s some­thing that peo­ple halfway across the globe can find with a sim­ple tech­no­rati search. Feel­ings used to be some­thing that peo­ple had to sense by observ­ing body lan­guage and care­fully deter­min­ing the mean­ing behind what peo­ple said. Now blog­gers are writ­ing their feel­ings down in sur­pris­ingly hon­est terms and sum­ma­riz­ing with a “mood icon.”

So what does it all mean? I’m still not sure. Whereever this “rev­o­lu­tion” goes, I think it’s going to be excit­ing. Will the pod­cast become the new blog? Maybe. Will peo­ple start film­ing bits of their lives and “vid­cast­ing”? Per­haps. Will the new, social face of the inter­net change the way peo­ple inter­act with one another? Def­i­nitely. I think it already has.

Tags: musing, rss, software, web