As per this thread on archinect, I am posting my blog rationale. I think a blog is a real tool to consider and ponder. Perhaps I should have posted this much earlier, but hey, better late than never. I sould like to say that archinect provides a great forum that begins to achieve some of the things I ranted about here, and I wanted to know what some of the archinecters felt about blogs in general.

Just a bit of background on this "rationale"...our housing studio was offered a blog by our professor in the spring of 2006, and some of the entries/responses (or lack thereof) motivated me to write about the nature of blogs. This rationale was sent as an email to the professor and my fellow studio mates:

It's nice that the faculty members have perused the web, but I'd like to waste 5 minutes of everyone's day discussing the transformation of media on the internet and why mere perusal is sincerely inadequate...

We've been living with the internet for a while now. I personally feel that about 4 years ago it became one of those technologies where we all lived for a while without it - but those times have long since been forgotten. The web has reached the status of "what do I do if I can't check the internet?" like the cell phone. Anyone remember those dark days?

The internet is something that is immediate and informative, personalized and dynamic. It's also a major part of our lives. Let's look at some of the things that make the internet unique as a media form:

You can communicate with people across vast physical boundaries
You can publish more rapidly
You can make easily accessible cross references through imbedded hyperlinks.
You can animate information in new ways through video, audio, etc.
You can create interactivity, eliminating static content.

So. Considering the unique nature of the internet as a media form (and these are just 5 generalized observations - these are constantly evolving), what have we accomplished? We're using the internet, so we already cross physical boundaries (but that's not really unique...telephone and television do the same). What's unique about crossing these boundaries are the OTHER 4 functions we can apply WHILE crossing said boundaries.

We have a blog, which serves the immediacy of thought, the stream of thought. As we've seen in the "blogs-vs-traditional-media" debate, some people allow for less rigid standards while we're sorting this rapid fire ability for publishing out, but I think we've been fairly strict in publishing guidelines and fact checking. We've practically surpassed normative guidelines while publishing quickly.

We have instituted cross references and animation. personally, I planned on putting something interactive in at some point (time permitting) beyond the mere animations, so we are at least moving in this direction at the 1/2 way point of the semester.

But this isn't a book. This is the web. The blog software currently allows for a degree of interactivity through the comments section...I mean, how else do we know people have signed on and checked? Should I sort through the site statistics (if blogger.com even provides those) to see when which IP's have come through and looked at what pages? Currently we have 0 comments for seven posts (which amount to MUCH more in conventional terms of a post in a blog).

My point is, we have ENABLED a newer media type here. As publishers, we are fulfilling our end of the bargain. At the very least, we have to reformat and edit content for the web. At most, given this opportunity, we are making some of our content for this class "web ONLY". Where is the reciprocation from the audience? Where are the comments from the viewers? Can we expect those? Should I start being undemocratic and try to block certain rogue IP's from just meandering about the site? Am I wrong about this web experiment? Because, honestly, if so, then I might have to let this experiment slide for a while and inform the audience to please wait for the book. Or the newspaper. Or the town crier. Or the cuneiform carved tablet. It might as well just be so if the audience treats this experiment like an antiquated media type.

I am being selfish here. I used to do these things for a living. I had to define the parameters of what it meant to publish electronically, and I had to distinguish for companies what publishing on a cd vs. publishing a book vs. publishing on the web meant. So I just don't want this to become busy work. I guess I want something out of it. Of course, we always run the risk of getting the "troll" or the "high school yearbook signature" type of comment (like "Nice work!")...but one can dream. Anyone else care?

Max