Hello, world!

With this post, I'm joining the blogosphere.

The impetus is a summer course on blogging. We'll be blogging, reading blogs, commenting, assessing and generally experimenting.

I'm not really brand-new to blogging. I helped launch Today@PCWorld in 2004 when the magazine launched a staff blog. As online news editor, I helped establish the blog and build its community; today, as a contributing editor, I still edit, post and occasionally write for Today@PCWorld.

Thoughts About Blogging

"Web logs" are a phenomenon enabled by the Internet, but I believe the concept is not a new one. The first American newspaper, Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestic, which Benjamin Harris launched in 1690, was a single broadsheet with news on three pages and the fourth page was left blank for comments, updates and new reports as readers passed it along. So newspapers have a long history of interactivity, even if it has not always been explored.

What I don't always mention about Publick Occurrences is that its first issue was also its last. The colonial governor shut it down. So angering public officials is another long history of journalism.

More to Come . . .

In the weeks ahead, I'll post material from our class and hope to draw discussion not only from course participants but others who find their way to this blog.