Ecotone: Writing About Place: WeblogAsPlace

The topic for August 15th 2003:

Weblog as Place

Is your weblog a place in itself? How do you locate it in the scheme of things? What kind of map is it on? What's your relationship with your weblog? And with those who visit it?

[London and the North] Strange that it was I who volunteered this topic. My weblog is one year old this week! I am very proud of it and feel it is one of the best background things of the last year. So this entry – well all those for this week – feel like some great responsibility: to do justice to the whole caboodle. I’m cool. But is it a place in itself? To be honest, I never even realised I was writing about place until Pica invited me to join Ecotone as a ‘place blogger’.

[Fragments from Floyd] ... But my weblog emanates from a real and permanent "address"... a term used metaphorically to locate any webpage. Fragments from Floyd comes every day from a literal address-- the same desk in the same green valley of Southwest Virginia. Many blogs' political or technological opinions and fact-streams have no bearing to their location of origin-- which may even change from day to day now that road-posting and hand-held blogging is possible. Other webblogs, fewer in number, could be thought of as "where-blogs". For these bloggers, place is central; and for some, the person and personality behind the keyboard is also integral to the information being transmitted.

[The Chatterbox] After been writing daily on this weblog for almost three years, I could say that it has become a place. Not only a metaphorical or virtual place, but a real physical space. I feel like this weblog is an extra room in my house - the one with the funky pink wallpaper - where I go every morning, or sometimes in the afternoon or night, and jot down my thoughts. This weblog became a part of my life. Here I set little tidy bits of my days, what I see, hear, think and experience. It's like a giant treasure box and an extension of who I am. Writing here is part of my routine, like taking a shower, brushing my teeth, drinking, eating, and sleeping. This weblog is located in downtown Davis, California, USA. My visitors come from different places and are familiar with different languages and cultures. They stop by for a couple of minutes and get entertained by what they find here. They can talk to me while visiting or only pass through in silence - with a smile on their faces, though - for that I guarantee!

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