| By :
Mark Etinger
When the internet started it was a tiny network of computer nerds mostly disseminating computer nerd ideas and interests on message boards. They would discuss new equipment, video games, new ways to program, new uses for their computers, Star Wars and Star Trek. As the internet found it's way into more middle-class homes in the mid to late 90's it became a place for researching trivia, news, and a lot of media advertising and experimentation. Some thought computers would be the new television and while that has recently started to seem possible again at that point it simply did not work out. Instead as the dot com bubble burst in the late 90's the internet once again became a wasteland of nerd experimentation but now the nerd seed had been planted in folks who previously might have been turned off by all the science fiction and the math. As the aughts progressed and the internet became the hot bed of commerce folks always seemed to know it might become another world grew and in many ways it was just an outgrowth of what the web was to begin with. Those message boards were becoming the blog. "The Blog" was becoming just the most basic element of Web 2.0. A world of "user generated content." No longer were people logging onto the web to go to sites about things they wanted to read about. Now they were created those sites. The shock waves of this were felt very quickly and became compounded as new platforms particularly social networking sites (Friendster begat MySpace, MySpace begat Facebook etc.) made people more and more comfortable and even addicted to sharing themselves and their opinions on the web. Blogging of course remains somewhat niche but as reading friends and strangers thoughts and interests on the net became more acceptable and through trial and error more reliable blogging became more significant. Soon those blogs were affecting big businesses and politics in measurable ways. A blog site could suddenly break a news story or create a new meme. You blog for free of course and this meant that there was always going to be some muck to wade through but excitingly the cream always tended to rise to the top. It was a meritocracy in every sense of the word. While many people continue to simply use the web for funny quotes and fun short stories even these things have taken on more weight, launching careers. In all everything we do in our society has seemingly been infiltrated by The Blog. It is truly a revolution.
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