Blogging

In today's high paced technology driven world the phenomenon of weblogging has taken the internet by storm. What began as a desire for early web designers and savvy home users to share online experiences and interests with one another has blossomed into a whole new online world. In the past seven years "blogging," which is now the trendy term, has gone from a few hundred websites to over 21.5 million sites. In fact, the number of active weblogs is doubling every five months. Weblogs are as old as the internet itself, but they are just now starting to be recognized my most internet users.

One of the main reasons blogging has grown at such a rapid rate in the past few years lies in the development of new software and programs. Knowledge of HTML programming is no longer required to successfully participate in blogging. Theses new developments in programming now allow the everyday internet user to easily create their own blogs as well as post comments and messages on other people's blogs.

My first experience with blogging began this September soon after I purchased a Jeep Grand Cherokee. I do a lot of hunting and fishing in the area and work excavation in the summer months. I wanted to modify my new vehicle so it would be more capable and trustworthy traveling on the mountain trails and unimproved roads which I frequently travel. While searching the internet I found the website jeepsunlimited.com. I began reading posts that members had submitted on the site and quickly began to learn a lot about my vehicle as well as about the online community I was involved in. Some members of the site had posted as many as 3,000 messages and are very active in the online community. The fact that people were so enthused with a website was very interesting to me. As I grew more comfortable with the site I began to post messages of my own. Some of my posted messages inquired about certain parts and accessory options I had for my vehicle while other times I posted messages to meet users in the area and make friends in the jeep community. I used the screen name JMUWJ, WJ being the model of my Jeep and JMU my school, to let myself be identified by other members of the site. While using this site I was considered a "noob" or a person that is new to the online community. I was surprised at how active the members of this site are. There are hundreds of new posts everyday and all of them get an average of at least five

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