(PUC Minas - 2006)TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG The web l

(PUC Minas - 2006)

TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG

 

            The web log or blog, where internet pioneers first recorded their daily lives in on-line diaries, has been a significant part of the internet since 1999, when a software from blogger.com put blogging within the reach of all web-users, no matter how limited their technical skills. There are now as many as a million blogs out there in cyberspace.

            But last year the blog experienced a Cinderella-like transformation due to a young Iraqi architecture graduate writing under the pseudonym Salam Pax. His blog, "Where is Raed?", providing an eyewitness account of life in Baghdad during and after the final months of the Saddam regime, became extremely popular for a huge international audience. It finally gave the web log, according to Richard Clark, the editor of "Web User", the UK's best-selling internet magazine, the prominence it deserves. Salam Pax has created a precedent many people hope will be followed. But in reality, few blogs provide insight on global events. For many bloggers, the objective is simply to entertain.

            In the vast world of blogs - ¹which now includes photoblogs for amateur photographers and moblogs, updated in real time with photos from mobile phones - Richard Clark's own personal favorites are chosen ²for their literary appeal. His regular reads include a cynical account of working life as a manager in a call centre, an Australian student's views on British culture and the difficulties of a British woman in Belgium with what she claims is an intensely annoying boyfriend. To find the blogs that amuse you, he recommends following the links on the page of a popular blog: most bloggers compulsively link to other blogs, but there are also lots of sites that list blogs according to popularity.

            If, ³on the other hand, you actually want to make your own contribution to the blogging universe, Clark advises you to make sure they're interesting and to update them regularly - ideally, every day, or every two days - because that's the only reason people come back.

(FROM: Speak Up, April 2004. Adapted)

 

The word WHICH in "which now includes..." (ref. 1) refers to