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If you think about it, the Internet is about communication. E-mail enables you to save 34 cents when writing mom or sending business correspondence. Web pages let you advertise your business or show off your new kid. Instant messaging enables you to know when someone is online and chat with them. Almost everything you can do on the Internet enables you to send or receive information.

So it's only logical that somebody, or a group of somebodies, around 1997 started yet another Web phenomenon, the Blog. Based on a shortened form of "Web log," blogs are a personal online diary of sorts, updated in short bursts frequently (or not so frequently). This may sound a lot like some personal Web pages, but the blogging tools that enable fast and easy updates
are what make a blog something anyone can do.

Since we are a voyeuristic society, these almost surreal glimpses into a person's life, hobbies, or interests are incredibly fascinating. Forget reality television - this is the real reality. People write about the mundane ("I had toast and eggs for breakfast") to the extreme and personal
("I have this problem") or even the political ("I voted for"). Since it's easy to update your blog using only a Web browser and a modem connection, most of the barriers of creating a Web site are removed. You don't have to learn FrontPage or HTML and if you can order a book from Amazon.com you can do this.

A good place to start is www.Blogger.com. One of the first sites to create the online tool (or "Blogger") to enable almost anyone to create a blog, it's also a directory of thousands of blogs. The nice folks at Pyra Labs will also host your blog for free, so you are running out of excuses. I decided to see how hard it was to create my own blog, and it took me less than 2 minutes to get my own blog up and running.

Blogs are now starting to get a lot of press, mainly due to the fascinating blog coverage of the 9/11 disaster. Blogs are a great way for people to express their feelings or vent their anger in a public forum, whenever the urge to write strikes. Blogs can be created on almost any topic, and can be done hourly, daily, weekly or even monthly, depending on the subject. People still have expectations, probably due to our instant gratification society, that you will be updating yours somewhat frequently.

One of the most interesting uses of a blog comes from a recent O'Reilly.com article about people updating a blog during a conference so people that are unable to attend can follow the proceedings. This immediate form of feedback will change how some meetings or interactions are done.

One of the things I'd like to see in our area is a local news blog. I could just open this site and see what was happening that day or week, and quickly keep up with our region. I would prefer a summary of the important stories, maybe with links to the Danbury News-Times or other regional professional news sources.

I'm thinking of starting a blog if I can come up with an interesting subject, or maybe just something that is interesting to me. With more than 100 million people online now, it just might be interesting to someone else.

Before you journey into the world of blogs, I want to warn you that it is amazingly interesting and you can get lost reading blogs. I have lost track of time reading blogs – they are an incredible window into someone else's life.