About This Blog
Somewhile ago, Andrés Gentry asked me to answer some questions for the Blogger Profile Series that he is doing.
Among the twenty quesions he asked was "When you started, what blogs initially inspired your interest in blogging? Why?"
I thought I would include the answer here since I have never written anything about how I started this blog and sometimes people ask me why I blog, how I got started, etc. Hopefully, this would help explain a bit about how I started blogging and why I am so interested in blogs, the software and the blog phenonmenon.
When you started, what blogs initially inspired your interest in blogging? Why?
I think it was the technology more than any particular blog that sparked my interests in blogging.
I first heard about blogger.com around 2000, when a few independent underground e-zine makers in San Francisco mentioned it in a mail-list (forgot the name of the mail-list already and I don't even remember how I signed up to that in the first place).
I thought it was useful. Editors and writers can focus on the content. They don't have to worry about webpage design and html tags. But since I don't make e-zines and I didn't intend to keep an on-line diary (another major form of blog usage of at that time), I didn't really think of using it.
Then, I don't remember how, I learned about the "permalink" link feature and I saw some people using blog to store bits and pieces of information they collected on the internet.
(Some of the first blogs I read include Dave Winer's Scripting News, Jon Udell's Radio blog and Heath Row's Media Diet.)
Right away, I saw blogger as a knowledge database / management tool that can do many of the basic things that Lotus Notes (a very expensive groupware used by large corporations) did at that time. The best part of it was blogger costs nothing, it is a web-application (meaning no software required and not location/machine dependent) and doesn't require the tremendous technical effort that Lotus Notes need (database design, programming, a server, etc.) to setup or maintain it. I was totally fascinated by the technology and its possibilities - the feeling was like having discovered jewels unexpectedly in the middle of nowhere.
At that time, I also read many white papers on knowledge management and community of practice - ideas that guided the design philosphy and practical implications of Lotus Notes. I still don't know why, but I enjoy reading and learning on these topics. I thought it would be very useful to apply concepts of knowledge management concept at the individual and personal level, outside of the corporate realm.
Blog offers the opportunity to try that out. Relocation to Hangzhou gave me the impetus to do it.
Among the twenty quesions he asked was "When you started, what blogs initially inspired your interest in blogging? Why?"
I thought I would include the answer here since I have never written anything about how I started this blog and sometimes people ask me why I blog, how I got started, etc. Hopefully, this would help explain a bit about how I started blogging and why I am so interested in blogs, the software and the blog phenonmenon.
When you started, what blogs initially inspired your interest in blogging? Why?
I think it was the technology more than any particular blog that sparked my interests in blogging.
I first heard about blogger.com around 2000, when a few independent underground e-zine makers in San Francisco mentioned it in a mail-list (forgot the name of the mail-list already and I don't even remember how I signed up to that in the first place).
I thought it was useful. Editors and writers can focus on the content. They don't have to worry about webpage design and html tags. But since I don't make e-zines and I didn't intend to keep an on-line diary (another major form of blog usage of at that time), I didn't really think of using it.
Then, I don't remember how, I learned about the "permalink" link feature and I saw some people using blog to store bits and pieces of information they collected on the internet.
(Some of the first blogs I read include Dave Winer's Scripting News, Jon Udell's Radio blog and Heath Row's Media Diet.)
Right away, I saw blogger as a knowledge database / management tool that can do many of the basic things that Lotus Notes (a very expensive groupware used by large corporations) did at that time. The best part of it was blogger costs nothing, it is a web-application (meaning no software required and not location/machine dependent) and doesn't require the tremendous technical effort that Lotus Notes need (database design, programming, a server, etc.) to setup or maintain it. I was totally fascinated by the technology and its possibilities - the feeling was like having discovered jewels unexpectedly in the middle of nowhere.
At that time, I also read many white papers on knowledge management and community of practice - ideas that guided the design philosphy and practical implications of Lotus Notes. I still don't know why, but I enjoy reading and learning on these topics. I thought it would be very useful to apply concepts of knowledge management concept at the individual and personal level, outside of the corporate realm.
Blog offers the opportunity to try that out. Relocation to Hangzhou gave me the impetus to do it.
