Recently I was perusing the online blog world and I came across a feature that I plan to install on this site. It’s called FeedBurner. This free online service allows people to subscribe to my blog via email. It also provides me with information such as how many subscribers I have, where they come from, and what they are looking at on my site. All sorts of information that will help me make this site something great and wonderful, hopefully. It also it will help my readers keep up with my thoughts in an incredibly easy way. By subscribing (see box on right), you will receive an email whenever I post a new entry. It’s just that easy.

I plan to post about once a week, on the subjects you see listed to your right. If you do subscribe, please remember to come back and comment. I want this blog to partly be about discussion, so comments are important!

I have admittedly been fascinated by blogs for about three years now.

Yeah, I know it’s kind of a weird thing to be into, reading and knowing so much about people whom I’ve never met.It’s a hobby of mine that causes even my strangest of friends raise their eyebrows at me from time to time. I argue back that they have never ventured deep enough into the world of blogging, however, to make a fair judgment.

I think that when most people think of blogs, they think of some whiny teen lamenting their lack of lunch choices to some online journal that no one in their right mind would ever want to read. But a blog can be so much more than that. Many are written like serial newcolumns by people who can actually write well, and are even researched and reference legitimate sources. Some are personal, some political, others technical, etc. If you think it, someone’s probably blogging about it, and doing so pseudo-professionally. For example, when I was still in the planning stages for this website, I went to Google and did a quick search on “architecture blogs.” Like usual, I was astounded by the inundation of information I received. 378,000 hits. Most pertinently, I stumbled upon Archiblog, a blogsite that serves to catalog and highlight architecture blogs. I plan to add mine to their registry eventually. Another search for “political blogs” returned 69.1 million google hits, some obviously more legitimate then others. But it is undeniable- blogs are a major portion of the internet world.

Blogs have gained enough legitimacy in the internet world that other mass media sources, such as major network newreports, use them as research references, particularly when polling or trying to understand the sentiments of the general population. The great thing about blogs is that they are self-published, meaning that there is no higher power reigning in their biases. They are the true thoughts and opinions of their authors, out there for all to see and respond to. Blogs have proven powerful enough to get people fired, as happened in the recent political scandal involving a congressman and a blogging intern documented here, and again here.

Some of these blogs have millions of readers. Their writers are internet superstars. Perez Hilton, for example, has become such a popular celebrity blogger that he now is photographed and written about along with the celebrities he lampoons in his blog. Blogging is his career. It is a legitimate career for a ever-growing number of people across the globe.

Designers can, have, and should continue to capitalize on this internet phenomenon. Blogs have the power to connect ideas with many, many people. And what is Design but a field about having ideas? The potential in the meshing of blogs and designers is absolutely phenomenal.