Blog Names

So, you decided to start a blog. Why? Of most blogs that I follow, some are about voicing your opinion to a larger audience, some about finding someone to talk about your long days, some about grabbing attention, some about making friends and so on. I used to think one might blog just for the writing experience but I have come a long way from believing that it is that simple. Your writing skills or desire to write are no pre-requisite for a blog. If you have something to say and you are willing to share, that is reason enough.

Other than some titles whose meanings are obvious, there are some others that make you wonder what the person might have been thinking while naming their blog. Among the ones I follow there are, The Process of Healing, Kiwi Travel Writer, Highway Travels, Our Life In Bangalore, Raising 5 Kids With Disabilities, etc that are self-explanatory. The blogs revolve around the titles. All posts come under one broad category that forms the title.

Then there are those like mine, which cover anything under the sun and hence need a more generic title. So there are Random Thoughts, Ramblings, Avalokana - In Retrospect, etc. My own blog title was an act of laziness. I just picked the first word that came to my mind (as I do for my passwords which, by the way, makes them very secure) and added the word 'Digest' to it. Bumblebee Digest. I liked the way it felt... it sort of describes me. Bees are busy creatures and I like a busy status, I get very restless when I have nothing to do or I am just waiting for something to do.

There are a couple of blogs that I follow that are simply a part of what is probably a larger website or they are just popular. They are not exactly personal blogs but I find that they make interesting reading too. That is how Dilbert.com Blog and Paulo Coelho's Blog feature on my "Blogs I'm Following" list. Recently, I found out that Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk is, even though a personal blog, a promotional strategy to introduce readers to the organization called Brazen Careerist run by PT and a couple others. They both have their own blogs too, where they talk about their personal lives.

There are some blogs which are names that may seem straightforward or may have been thought of on the spur of the moment and remained, no matter what the content. I may be wrong but that's what Mommy Said What, Me ... A Geek ... No Way!!, etc seem like to me.

The ones I find intriguing are Fancy That... Fancy This, The Dreaming Arm, The Worsted Witch, Doing Jalsa and Showing Jilpa, etc. Sorry, what? They all sound nice, fancy and most of them write really well, so I cannot help wondering if I could take a peek into their minds back when they thought up this title. Is there an interesting story behind that too? Maybe something for a new blog post?

I blog on Blogger, yet most blogs I follow are on Wordpress. Blogger belongs to google, so it allows me to login using my gmail details. In fact, if I am on Firefox or Chrome, I do not even need to login again if I have a gmail tab open in the same window. That's how I originally settled for Blogger. I found Wordpress through a colleague of mine, who started her blog here a while ago. I liked the interface and how easy it was to find interesting blogs from another blog-post or the Wordpress homepage. That's how I ended up following so many Wordpress bloggers. However, I could never move from Blogger to Wordpress because I like the quiet privacy (sort of) that Blogger offers me against the open-space kind of publicity that Wordpress provides.

The Weblog

The weblog a.k.a blog concept has been around for a while. It has not taken off like the social networking sites viz Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Orkut, etc but has held it's own against all of them. From real writers like Paulo Coelho & Chetan Bhagat, celebrities like Gul Panag to aspiring writers, lesser known or unknown/wannabes, there are bloggers everywhere, thanks to the abundance of blogger space available.

A blog I read this morning suggested that one must participate in various networking sites, as part of being up-to-date with technology, to improve one's career prospects. I found the thought fascinating because I've met many people who, even though they are on these websites, condemn the existence of these and proudly declare that they are "not so much into it", as if that increases their status in the community. One of the reviewers of my resume once told me that blogging (listed under 'interests') might be looked at in poor light. I guess I am better off without my prospective employer knowing what my crazy life looked like (ability to fix sewing machine treadle belts, my love for chocolates, the books I read or restaurants I frequent or movies I like). 

My blog site is over a year old now but I have learnt more about the blogging culture in the last couple of months than ever. Blogger meet-ups, following blogs, blogger etiquettes, guest bloggers, use of pictures, size of blogs, are concepts I have grasped through reading a number of random bloggers and encouraging readers to visit my blog. 

Today, I learnt the idea behind adding links to words in a blog-post. I used to think those links were added automatically by some of the blog sites but later warmed up to the fact that they were added by the bloggers themselves. I only understood why, when one of the bloggers I was reading this morning explained. If you are merely a reader or a novice blogger like me and do not already know, I'll let you find out for yourself. 

I've also found that there are different categories to a blog. Technical blogs, advertisement blogs (the kind companies use to promote their products or update their consumers), information blogs, help-yourself blogs (something like the self-help books), review blogs (book/restaurant/product etc reviews), random blogs (this is where I belong) and so on. Of course, the blogs are not really called such. These are nomenclature I have attached to the categories.

Random blogs are generally rants of the blogger. From serving as an outlet for thoughts to being a platform to harness one's creativity or love for writing to acting as a forum to voice one's opinions, these blogs cover all aspects of life. There is variety in such blogs as also a risk of it being boring log of the life of an unknown face.  I am a random blogger. It adds no value to my resume but it sure helps me clear my mind of clutter.

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