February 13, 2004
A blog? What's that?
Blog is short for web log.
It’s estimated that over 4 million people worldwide have set up weblogs of one flavor or another. A million are reasonably active, a hundred thousand or more updated weekly or more often.
The biggest creators of blogs are young (90% under age 30). Some of the most influential have been politically-oriented folks. Blogs have created a sense of community among techno-geeks.
And yet, among folks I’ve talked to, there’s no shortage of confusion about them.
Some basic questions and answers if you’re new to the blog concept:
| Are blogs usually intimate personal diaries? | No, but some are. |
| Do most of ‘em get political? | Nope, some are issue-oriented, or creative, or technical. |
| But Live Sensibly is a blog? | Correct. |
| And, it’s focused on alcohol issues? | Pretty much. |
| Some personal stuff, too? | Yup! |
| Will off-topic stuff every come up here? | Perhaps, in the odds-n-ends category. |
The blog format ends up being extremely flexible, making it easy for its authors to publish stuff regularly. So, Live Sensibly may change daily, or even minute-by-minute, when I’m posting new material or folks are adding comments.
Comments
One of the fun things about a blog is that you can be as much a part of it as a reader and commenter as its author.
Many paths through the site
Another handy thing about a well-structured blog is that it gives many paths for wandering through the site. You’ll see the newest stuff on the home page and from there you can check out specific categories, see what sorts of conversations have been active lately, use the Search box at the right to dig up something specific, or see a map of the entire site.
Once you find something interesting, you can wander through it by category, sequentially, or alphabetically.
Building a knowledge base
My goal is to build up Live Sensibly as a knowledge base on alcohol-related issues. Folks coming here should be able to expose themselves a broad range of scientific evidence, perspectives, and experiences related to drinking, moderating, abstaining, preventing, and solving drinking problems.
Because of that, new material will be added on a regular basis. I’ll also go back to past entries to expand and clarify them when better information becomes available.
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