My Cyber Identity-Blog - Essay Example

Edelson (2005) describes it in simple words as "just" a browser interface to web site publishing. Blogs are used by different sections of the society for different purposes. While the perceived benefits are many, so are the threats and risks to the society and its people. Mehan (2006) refers to the blogsphere world as colorful and varied as the animal world. There is an evolutionary struggle for supremacy amongst bloggers. A blog is ranked by the number of hits it receives and the number of outbound link that it has.

Mehan clarifies that there are all levels of bloggers – ranging from those that have entered the world of bloggers and up to the founding fathers. To some blogging is merely a hobby but for many blogging can translate into very big business. There are some who blog almost everyday and they are able to attract advertisers or even product endorsement offers. There are different sites that offer tools to assist in meaningful blogging. For instance, Site Meter offers a free, basic hit count and link log in exchange for posting a logo-link to their website.

And if this was not enough, there are software tools that boost the blog’s hit count. There is also an exchange program where people surf other blogs in exchange for others visiting their blogs. It is now a part of the elite culture followed by the upper middle class – to read blogs. This is evident from the fact that many corporations have their own blogs. The marketing departments benefit too from such blogs. Rauchway (2007) reports in The New Republic that blogging have helped to marginalize scholarly Internet discourse.

Blogging has helped a doctoral candidate Scott Eric Kaufman, to develop for himself a much higher profile. When he posted a chapter of his dissertation and sought advice, he received 66 commentaries from people of different disciplines. Blogging produces a truly better debate, opines another blogger but its practitioners do not