The history of multi-talented blogs, such as website blogs, strict topic blog sites, and social media forums, aren't new to me as an avid user of digital media, but being able to indulge myself in the history and back story of how these become sources divided is quite interesting. The details that differentiate the many types of digital media we encounter on a daily basis, and how were looking & utilizing these sources of information is extremely informative. I'm not sure about you but I've never put much thought on the way the context of the media is really setup as opposed to just viewing the information that I'm given.
I found an interesting blog called Civil War Memory which is written by a passionate Bostonian, Kevin Levin ("No, the name does not rhyme")- he's also a little funny too! This blog is setup for the reader to initially recognize all Kevin's notable accomplishments and background information as if he's offering a menu but without the prices. His blog also offers many topics of discussion regarding history of the civil war and surrounding interest. The setup is initially more of a sales type and geared towards him being 'for hire' for a future event. This is a true blog that initiates a goal in the beginning before viewing any of his postings which tells me a little about the audience he intends to attract.
Another blog I've reviewed is similar to Kevin's blog; It's just a basic blog, not differentiated as a website or another type of media, but it has no intention to solicit services to the reader. This blog is called Women of History created and ran by Melisende/ Musings on Melisende. This blog is exactly what the title suggests and to me, nothing short of amazing! This was definitely geared towards someone like myself who has major interests in learning about accomplished woman in history. It's setup is easy to navigate, eye-catching with great photos attached to her blog postings, and offers the reader capabilities to find a wide variety of wonderful information and context in one place. Both Kevin and Melisende have a blog and the same intention on capturing a specific audience, however, they are setup entirely different and in my opinion, the latter is the most straight forward and allows the reader to jump right in and indulge the information.
I also appreciated the context of an entirely different blog that I reviewed and loved the way the reader captures the audience. As opposed to many other blogs that have a broad range of topics under one umbrella, or one that offers the reader the opportunity to speak at an event, this blog is setup as a story-line; How brilliant is that! The blog is called WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier and it is written by the grandson of, Private Harry Lamin, who was born in England and enlisted to fight in the first World War. Harry's grandson was handed down all Harry's letters that were saved by the receiving family members during Harrys time serving in the War and instead of letting them sit, he put them to use. This blog is setup as a memoir and each individual post and is a dictation of an actual, handwritten encountered letter the Private himself! I can't tell you how excited that makes me as a reader to have the opportunity to experience something so personal! So initially, in order to continue to follow the story, you'd have to patiently wait until the next blog was posted. Since this blog was written many years ago, we now have the capabilities to go back and read it all at once which is still exciting in my opinion. This blog has gained many followers and I can see why. Each of the blogs offers their own individual goals, topics, and layouts to display their purpose. All of these bloggers are so different but they share a huge commonality which is sharing the passion of being a blogger.
I've hopped off the web browser for a bit and decided to check out some different styles of blogging on social media. I headed over to good old Facebook to see what kind of historical blogs I could find and see how interactive they were. The hardest part about joining any digital media these days is that even though the site or group is there and created, it's been forgotten about. I've noticed this happens quite frequently on social media platforms such as Facebook. Facebooks allows anyone that wants to create a group to do so without any initial, boundary-leading, screening process. Although it does end up archiving after a certain period of time when it's idle, it doesn't prevent it from catching those that are only offering context into their groups once every two weeks or so. For me, the forum between a social media blog and web based blogs differ in that social media has a platform to allow hundreds of thousands of bloggers in one group to offer input with the capabilities to post at their leisure.
Anyhow, during my hunt on Facebook, I joined the Facebook page called 'World Ancient History' which is a collection of posts from many attributers and is very active. The rules were solid which was seller for me; No conspiracy theories, information must be attached on each post with it's origin in time of history, and must be before the 1600's. The post consists of artifacts, architectural structures, tribes, you name it! This site offers plenty to look at and requires pictures for each post which makes it much more appealing to the eye! It's strict, had good guidelines and offers great moderation.
The next group I followed was more of a laid-back, possibly semi-factual group that separates itself from the categorized history groups to a different community of people and their histories. The group is called 'Haunted History of Kentucky". I joined this group as way to experience a different kind of history blogging. It allows me to compare the type of viewers from more of a traditional historian blog to a more laid back type of blog. This group only has one rule and that's to be courteous so I'm sure some of the posts aren't being reviewed much either. There is definitely some really great info as there's always a certain feeling you get when you think of hauntings. I can't guarantee all the history is factual but that's part of anything you do now on the internet!
The fact that there is access to so much data at our fingertips is amazing. Learning who is targeting who and why is also neat when you look beyond the headline. In my searches, I think that I've found plenty more non-factual information from the social media platforms than I did the web-based blogs and even tend to wonder when I see something if it's even part of history.
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