In the Rough - The Blog of Joel McDonald Jr.

The biggest Internet trend to hit net hipsters? Live Journal/Blogging. Everywhere I turn another friend is launching yet another blog, the most popular of these is the free service dubbed Live Journal. Frankly, I don’t understand fully the concept of these little pieces of cyberspace other than being empathetic to the desires of those whose blood isn’t laced with binary code to stake out little corners of the internet to call their own. It’s becoming easier and easier to publish to the web and I for one think it’s a great thing. Someone with virtually no internet experience can hop online and have a nice page up in minutes. I remember back to 6 years ago when my parents would not let me even entertain the idea of having a website stating that is was too expensive. Leave it to me to blaze the path of the internet forest and proclaim that yes, anyone can have a site on the web for free. The downside to this new era of the internet? Yep, you guessed it, pop-up/banner ads. EEK! How I hated those things. I suppose that’s the biggest reason why I made the plunge, in yet another trail blazing maneuver, and acquired a domain name for my site. Since that time I’ve (counts on hands) purchased or maintained six other domain names. Great stuff. Now anyone can do what I did 5 years ago without the hassles and politics. Almost every ISP offers a few megs of web space now, so now even my 1st grader sister actually has a site to call her own. (sighs). To contrast, it wasn’t until I was almost a freshman in high school that I had my own pages on the web. What is this world coming to? Anyway, back to the original topic…live journals. Now it’s even easier than ISP web space with the advent of live journals. I wonder who the genius was that figured out that online one way forums might be interesting. Truth is…they are. I would caution anyone who has provided me with a link to your blog…I actually do read them. To be fair, I’ll let you read mine too, except I’ll post on my own site…as would seem quite a logical action. I’m sure I’ll expand how I’m posting to include some nifty features and connect friend’s blogs and whatnot, but for now it’s going to remain at simple posts. Well, I think it’s time for a nap. Have fun everyone!