Why? What? Who?

Why are blogs interesting?

This is a question I've been asking since I first came into contact with the notion of blog. First off, I don't much like the sound of the word "blog". It's sounds like something you catch more than what it actually is: a powerful medium for overt personal transparency and even corporate marketing and public relational messaging.

Well, some of us just don't feel the need to share our lives with others. Why would you care that I did this or that yesterday and plan to do something else today? Certainly, this type of personal transparency is, on average, the least interesting stuff to share with strangers.

Why am I blogging?

I think human interaction in the abstract is very interesting and this is exactly what blogging is. It's just a really convenient and powerful way to share ideas and information with strangers. One very useful consequence of the advent of blogs is that we are now able to become contributors to various distributed think tanks. This is where I see most of the benefit of this phenomenon. The blogging culture that has emerged is far less interesting and in some circles seems to be more important than the actual content. Geeks can be generated in so many ways, it seems.

What's Carmine's Kernel?

This is a place where I will talk about intellectual interests that are core to me (my kernel). I will share what I have learned and what I am learning in the hopes that I can exchange ideas with (and learn from) others who are thinking similar thoughts.

Who am I?

I work for Microsoft as a Technical Evangelist and have been a software developer for 7+ years. Carmine is a nickname of mine that I feel best suits my core self. My educational background is in math, philosophy and planetary astronomy. I'm one of the people behind Channel 9. You probably hear the names Pryor and Scoble when Channel 9 is discussed in the media or at events, but there are others who play very big roles in making Channel 9 a success and I happen to be one of them. That said, I don't mind sitting in the back of the bus since I am better able to help plot our course without being bothered by things that live in the limelight.

I hope this place is of some use to you and that we can think together.

Comments

[dj]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with the rest of us. What a mind you have! Your thoughts about both the ugliness of the word blog as well as naming the value of abstract sharing matches my own thinking. And of course, we all like that, now don't we? Thanks for taking the time and please, share more.

[Sa'ed]

First, I would like to thank you for publishing this definition. I have just been introduced to word “Blog” an hour and half ago. An article published in a local newspaper here in the Dubai (UAE) talking about a guy called Robert Scoble that described his blog.

As I didn’t have a clue what this word meant, and actually thought -for all practical reasons- that it’s something I should take notice off so not to catch :) , and as it’s the last day of the week here, and just finished the normal 15-hour working-day, I did what every one in such an environment does and … went into researching the internet for it :)

To conclude, I finally reached to this page, completely satisfied with the definition you provided; now I can finally call it off for today and leave the office… soo thank you!
Cheers
Sa’ed

[Carmine]

dj and Sa'ed, thank you for visiting this place. I'm happy that you find my definition of blog useful :) I'll try and keep this place interesting and hopefully the distributed thinking that goes on here will produce some useful insights and knowledge.