Anatomy of a Blog : Week 3

This post forms part of a series. Read the first installment.

Words: Pete Ashton
Illustration: Raymond Weekes

When you stick something on the Internet it becomes part of the network. If your something is a fancy looking website that has pictures of the stuff you do and not much else then sure, it’ll be on the grid but only in the sense that the Isle of Feltar is part of the United Kingdom. It’s there but it’s not exactly engaging with the bustling hubs of the country. Which is fine, if that’s what you want, but you might want a little more from your something on the Internet. You might want it to actually engage.

If you want to connect with the rest of the Internet a blog is probably the best way to do it. Part of this is the conversational tone I mentioned before but a huge chunk of it comes down to the humble link.

You’re no doubt familiar with Wikipedia - the online encyclopedia that might not be accurate but by God it’s useful. And you’ve probably had that experience where you look up something, say the Island of Fetlar (and, by the way, doesn’t that sound just a little rude to you?), and within four clicks find yourself reading about Genoa Cathedral. Or hermit crabs. Or melodic death metal. Or kittens. And it might seem incredibly random and at times absurd that these things are somehow connected. But they are.

Just as the multiplex nature of causality gives the illusion of free will so the complexity of the inter-linked Internet gives the illusion of random chaos to such a degree that it can be hard to see how you might engage with this. But it can be done. Once you understand, in the words of Ted Nelson, that everything is deeply intertwingled, then you’re on the road to getting it right.

< Week 2: the social internet

Next in the series: getting personal >