Blogs

Blogs are a very unique form of communication where intended receipient of the communication can be either be:
a. a selected few - donot list your blog publicly; announce the url to a few selected.
b. masses - list it publicly; post interesting articles; link your blog from other well know sites, so that google with do the rest.
c. one's own self - blog can either be listed or otherwise; but basically one writes for self. For memories, for creating a repository, for serving as dairy, for creating literature or just for the sake of writing.

Of late, blogs are pushing role of individuals in the area where conventional media has had a major role in last 5 years, providing news, like Gaurav Sabnis' blog which created flutter amongst IIPM people (which was followed by a `lawsuit';). Also, there are cases where blogs are more authentic source of info compared to media (see nov's PCQuest for reference about blogs during iraq war). Some biggies like Google, write blogs officially (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/).

It is, certainly, very interesting how every 10-15 years there is a change in the way we communicate with the outside world. Though not as 'killer' as email is but definitely blogs have created their own space in the array of communication tools and they are here to stay.