I'm reflecting on blogging and I'll tell you why in a moment. I've been blogging for quite some time and for a variety of reasons. When I posted my first blog post, back in May of 2004 (wow - has it really been almost 6 years), my intent was to explore ideas. Sure I did a lot of "latest news stuff" early on, but slow it morphed into what I wanted, which was me talking about tech I was using, both personally and in business. I used the canvas of the blog as a place to explore ideas, share ideas and get feedback/input.
I've been reflecting on this idea-space via blogs over the past while as I've done work in the education vertical. While those of us in IT have blogged for a long time, and other early adopters as well outside of IT, from an industry perspective, many industries lagged behind and have really only just begun to explore, understand and leverage blogs. They are starting to see that the blog is potential vehicle for students and teachers to create ideas, share ideas, build collaboratively ideas and ultimately build personal online portfolios. As I've watched my clients within the education vertical discuss blogs and other social media tools I have most enjoyed seeing how it generates enthusiasm and passion coupled with value.
This reflection on blogging deepened for me as I witnessed my wife move into the blogosphere and social media yesterday evening. She'd been wanting to explore ideas, chronicle things she was exploring with a specific focus on proactively exploring things in the area of health, fitness, family, cooking, getting back to the basics, travel, taking classes and other ideas. In truth, she wasn't sure exactly where things would go. She just wanted a forum to talk about some of the things she was exploring and thinking about. So she create a blog which completely thrilled me. I'd been using blogs for a long time. I've been reading blogs of a technical nature and personal interest for a long time. This thrilled me because it was using the tech in a completely non-tech area/way. She launched Tomorrow I Will.... yesterday with a brief post. Today, she was excited to post her most recent outing and thoughts. She was enthusiastic, not just about the writing, but by the feedback. It was the potential for conversing with people about these topics that really excited her. Already, she's planned various people that she plans on chatting with, blogging about and perhaps even videoCasting about!
That got me to thinking about my own blogging and the importance of continuing to use mip's scan as a platform for developing/sharing ideas, providing insight with regards to things I've used/done and engaging in conversations with the many, many creative & smart people that abound. If you find yourself in an industry / company that is looking to do the same, or if you are personally trying to expand your thinking, a blog might be the perfect vehicle if you haven't tried it. I leverage Typepad and my wife decided to go with Wordpress. Be sure to watch for a comparison post where I talk about our individual experiences using these two different blogging platforms.
If you've found a unique use for blogs and would like to share it, feel free to comment below. I'd love to hear about and start a conversation.

Google just recently released the ability/functionality to create a custom search engine. The idea is that you can create a search engine for yourself (and others) that searches a single site or across many sites. For example, let's say you were into news but only wanted to see news from certain sites. You could create a custom search engine that only searches sites you've added to the list.
Well as per my post from a few days ago I left
So now my search begins and I've moved over to 

What I'm experiencing is this. When I select a feed item from bloglines, let's say one of my feeds like Digg.com all my items become read. That means that if there was an indicator that there were 10 new items, they all disappear. That's ok...that is the way I set mine up. Then as I scroll through articles, I have the choice to keep them new by checking a little box that says "Keep New". This is a feature I've used a lot as it lets me keep an archive of items I may want to go back to in the future. Well this is what seems to be broken. For instance, when I look at my feeds now, Digg is showing that there are 0 new items and 27 old items that I've asked to "Keep New", but when I click on the feed all I see is an empty channel. This is happening to many feeds where I've saved things. It is very very frustrating.
Digg has become hugely popular. So is it any surprise that others are going to take a stab at trying that model out? That is what Netscape is doing. Moving away from the traditional portal of news and other such content, Netscape is 






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