Blog is Love.. (and finding me in the web)

blog is love - kathy g

and so after some video posts, i decided to write something entirely different from that, my web journey.

last monday while at the gym watching cnn, they had a feature about web profiles and tips to ensure that information disseminated in the web about you are accurate. its easy nowadays, just google someone's name and everything appears.

but this is not about that. this is about my sns and blogs and how i move from one platform to another.

FRIENDSTER

I opened a Friendster account in 2003, first year in college, with the hope of staying in touch with my highschool friends, getting to know my college friends, and discovering new things about my old old friends back in grade school. It didn't fail me. Back then, testimonials are a big deal. Though I don't look forward to that much as others did, its nice to hear what people say about you especially those that you don't know about. I felt particularly overwhelmed because a lot of people said that they admire my courage and how I stand up for things and reading them now made me ask myself, "whatever happened to me?" I was hooked for a few years, and then occassionally checking it, updating new photos and reading messages and yes, posting testimonials.

FRIENDSTER BLOG

Now along with your Friendster account comes the option of creating your blog. I did. It served as my creative outlet due to stressful and endless nights writing thesis, research and everything with the word "paper". I wasnt at all particular with my grammar or punctuation or language. What encouraged me to write regularly are people's comments. Oh yes. Again, reading them made me wonder what happened to me.

MULTIPLY

I opened a Multiply account because of photos and because blogs are more interactive. And then your Multiply homepage allows you to see updates from your contacts. I opened one right after college in the hopes of keeping in touch with my college friends and because I am starting to develop an inkling to photography.

BLOGGER

I created my blog because college friends Kathy, Kats and Trina have their own and because my job then required me to write a lot of things, this blog sort of documented what was happening to me back then. I write anything, random or well-thought-of things. But more often, random stuff. I write anything that pops into mind. This blog was designed, redesigned until I settled for the all-white-clean-less-is-more look.

FACEBOOK

I had to create a Facebook account because I have been hearing a lot of gaming apps in the site, one competing directly with one of the gaming brands I was handling back then. I wasn't really active in Friendster and I found Facebook interesting, though confusing. Facebook addiction didn't immediately start. It was only last year when people start posting on my site and tagging me that I had to check them all just to make sure everything is true and people wont misinterpret anything. Now, Im a Facebok freak. I check it every time I get online and I love love BIOTRONIC.

TWITTER

I created a Twitter account because my colleagues at INQUIRER.net kind of encouraged me to have one. And because I was always running out of time to write a decent blog entry, I liked the idea of a microblog. Say everything in 160 characters, now that's art! I follow major global news sites and yep, hollywood celebrities. My greatest "Twitter moment" was when Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes answered my tweet.

PLURK

Plurk is sort of the same as Twiter, with better interaction and your plurks and replies amount to Karma points. The higher your karma is, the more icons you have until you reach "Plurk Nirvana" only to discover nothing really big. I eventually got tired plurking and check it occassionally.

BLIP

Another microblog with a twist, you can add a song to your entry. Brought out the music kid in me. It was fun until I grew tired again. Thinking of a song that best describes an entry is a little hard especially when you're a pretty busy person.

So there. That's about everything. I usually check on Twitter and Facebook everyday. In my laptop, I set Chrome to automatically open all of these sites plus INQUIRER.net, NYTimes.com, CNN.com and two of my email accounts but I usually read more on Twitter and Facebook. When mobile, I usually just check on Twitter since my main concern is breaking news and its always there.

Ask me how I maitain all of these? Well, I integrated most of them into each other. My one plurk updates my twitter, friendster acct, facebook acct and multiply. I also embedded plurk, blip and twitter to this blog for everyone to see. Then my facebook acct posts feeds from this blog as well.

I wonder what will surface a few years from now in the web, its highly unpredictable already. But one thing I realize as I look back and write this is that these things chronicled how I transformed from being the old to the new me. Amazing cause I lost track of it and but digital data kept it for me.

This isn't random. This is about Blog is Love.