Why I started to blog

By Thomas Steiner. Written on Sun Oct 23 2005. Life

Blogging is seen very differently. Some say blogging is grassroot journalism and an important part of social networking of the 21st century. Others see blogging just as a thing of egomaniacs who long for perception. Long time I belonged to the second group.

How come I changed my mind? Well, this was mainly caused by one of the most human properties: curiosity. I love reading blogs - when they're worth reading. Nowhere else people express their meaning as honestly than on their blog. It is a great tool to find out what people really think of something. After the press reports due to the release of APIlity version 1.0.0 (heise and Golem) I was very interested in how people would take it on.

In his blog entry about APIlity Nathan White describes his thoughts and dislikes just as they came into his mind. He calls his blog entries brain drippings and this is what makes it so worthy. I think this was my personal "hey, blogs are good for something" experience. My blog is called blogccasion which describes very clearly what it is for me. A thing I can put my thoughts in ? l'occasion, when the opportunity arises.

I have strong concerns however in just using some off-the-shelf blogging software. I am not blogging my life as some bloggers do, but anyway, I feel bad when some third party even owns some kilobytes of it. What if the "blogger.com"s of this world go bust? Therefore I developed the blogccasion software myself, upgraded my webhosting package and there it goes…

I'm passing one and a half years at France for studies and it also is a great thing to stay in contact with my friends and family. Everybody can read and comment on the things I write whenever they want - or not at all, and this is the best part. I am not annoying anyone by sending unwanted emails. Those who are interested can have a look at the blog.

… ? l'occasion