My previous experiences with blogging have been positive. For my Writing, Style and Technology class, myself and each of my classmates had to write, upload visual work, share links, embed video and audio, and then comment and edit each other's work. I do not know that the experience would have been half as rewarding had we not had a "real life" group of people working together, sharing and editing. It would have been very disappointing to have spent time and energy writing a blog if nobody ever read it or responded. I did repost an online comic that I had found and not only did the author respond to my post, but several of his regular readers got in on the action.
When I first started hearing about online journals, I likened them to cheap, photocopied "'zines", which floated around art and music communities, giving voices to writers and photographers within marginalized subculture groups as well as announcing events. Much like the paper 'zines, online journals were sometimes of great interest to you and sometimes they were of no interest to anyone. Mostly, what came to mind was teens complaining online about how much they didn't like their life.
My brother opened my eyes to several "legit" news agencies which wrote in depth about the events I found both crucial and crucially under reported elsewhere. These sources became more and more widely acknowledged, and as a result of reliable online information and reporting, actual newspapers are losing money and closing up shop.
My experience starting this blog has been good, as well. I enjoy writing, and without an opportunity to interact with my classmates directly, the more avenues available to share experiences and information, the better. I didn't have any real problems, I have another blog here on blogger.com, so it was familiar territory for me. The link from our class page didn't work, but that's pretty run of the mill technology stuff. I also can't see my cursor as I type here, so spacing and editing is sometimes time consuming.
I enjoyed reading the wikipedia page on blogging. I forgot about many of the instances of online journalists successfully checking the giant news corporations. That was pretty exciting. My expectations generally hover around the "Yeah, we're lying, but everyone heard our lie and twenty people heard your truth" response. What that means is that blogs are big enough now to be taken seriously by a large number of people.
Some of my favorite blogs are music blogs. Some offer free MP3 downloads, other merely review great hard to find music. This fosters a world wide community, which is especially helpful for those who live in a town with no avenue for the style of music which most interests them.
Some of my favorites are:
http://www.filter27.com/
http://glowingraw.blogspot.com/?zx=f582269a82169311
http://livepa.blogspot.com/
