Blogging Hiatus

I will not be blogging again until May 17 or 18. I'm taking a few days at the end of the semester for R & R.

I apologize to footnoteMaven for not participating in her first Shades carnival. I tried to find a photo of a mother, but I could not find pictures of mothers with their children. My family tended to just have the kids or just have the mother in their photos.

Graduation is tonight. I've got a couple of things that I've got to go take care of in the office today.

Your Thoughts Please . . .

Is blogging being made obsolete by newer technologies?

How To Blog

Annoyed Librarian's post was written for library blogger-wannabes, but it can apply to multiple groups. I had a fifth comment to apply for genealogy bloggers, but on second thought, I decided not to make it; however, if others want to add to the list, go right ahead.

Musings on the Big Genealogy Bloggers

I just noticed that a major genealogy blogger just took a posting from another big genealogy blogger and did not offer a link to that blog in any way. Now, to give some credit to the blogger, he did not repeat the wording of the other blogger verbatim. He just took the story without offering a "tip of the hat." I've also noticed this same major genealogy blogger has not given credit to several of us smaller genealogy bloggers over the last few months and years. While it's not necessarily plagiarism, it's not exactly ethical when one's sources are not cited!

Why is it that many of the big players in genealogy blogging are so afraid of sending a little traffic to another blogger? One of the most successful political bloggers is Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit. His links to other bloggers, both the big bloggers and the lesser known bloggers, are so legendary that there is even a term to describe the surge that occurs when a person receives a link from his blog. It's called an "Instalanche." It's a win-win situation for Reynolds and for those to whom he links. Glenn keeps people coming to his blog because they know he's going to offer them interesting links and commentary. The other bloggers win because they get exposure and pick up new readers on a regular basis. Why do some of the major genealogy bloggers seem to think that blogging is a competition for business and try to gain a monopoly? The very nature of blogging is that it is social! "Social" implies networking, and there's no better way to network in genealogy than to provide links to other blogs. While adding blogs to one's blogroll is a way to make a lasting link to those blogs that you read on a regular basis and which are similar in content to your blog is one way to do this, just giving a "hat tip" to someone for having it on their blog and calling it to your attention is another way to do this.

It's time to end the competitive, monopolistic attitudes that are out there. Let's help one another. It can be a win-win situation for all of us, but most of all for our readers.