A co-worker's question today nudged me just a bit out of the paper-bound universe by asking about my experience with blogging software. Turns out that it wasn't the plug-ins he was interested in so much as a way to organize the content around what something was about, rather than it was published.
Such talk should be double-heresy to this erstwhile History-English major, the kind that should have me looking over my shoulder for the periwigged ghost of Sam Pepys. Yet, when I think about how I look for and absorb blogs, date has very little to do with...well..much of anything. Oh, it's useful for context, and definitely as a cue that the material I'm reading is new (if only to me). But that's it, really.
In the end, I mentioned Blogger's tagging feature to the aspiring blogger. Tumblr may have it too; I've just been too lazy to look for it...not to mention open the door to having to tag 400+ posts on two copies of the same content. It's a door that will have to be opened, though, and soon. If only because date-driven blogging sends the signal--however subtle--that the blog is more "about me" than it is for the perusal of my readers. That's an attitude I'd prefer to avoid projecting, much less have reflected back into my own mindset by the medium itself.
