{"id":153,"date":"2008-06-09T00:58:07","date_gmt":"2008-06-09T05:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/?p=153"},"modified":"2008-06-09T00:58:07","modified_gmt":"2008-06-09T05:58:07","slug":"why-should-i-have-a-websiteswhy-blog-why-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/2008\/why-should-i-have-a-websiteswhy-blog-why-twitter\/","title":{"rendered":"Why have a website, why create a blog, why Twitter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Golden<\/a>My esteemed colleague Beah<\/a> just started blogging, and opened her blog with a very important question – Why Blog<\/a>?\u00a0 I remember people asking a similar question years ago when I registered this domain – why would you want to have a website with your name on it?\u00a0 Almost the same question has come to my mind recently when playing around with Twitter.<\/p>\n

So, why blog?\u00a0 With all the hundreds of thousands of blogs on the web you might think there’s no need to ask this question.\u00a0 One of the best things about social science is asking questions about things that everyone takes for granted.\u00a0 Unfortunately the “science” part of social science is a bit too time-consuming to finish up on a Sunday-evening blog post, so instead we’ll look at a few sites of friends and colleagues and maybe collect some thoughts on what motivates people to blog.<\/p>\n

First, why do I blog here?\u00a0 I try to keep this blog relatively professional, posting mostly on topics that I encounter in my work, in my academic research, and in my side projects (the standard disclaimer, as always, applies).\u00a0 One of my motivations was sharing some of the research done for classwork – it seemed a shame to write up a report, turn it in to a professor, and then let it gather dust in some corner of my hard drive.\u00a0 My undergrad degree was in journalism and I do miss writing, so that’s another motive.\u00a0 Also, having been through some rough patches in my career during the dot-com downturn, I thought blogging might help me establish a bit of a professional brand.\u00a0 I have my URL on my resume and I would hope that any company looking to hire me would get an idea that I’m knowledgeable and interested in relevant areas.<\/p>\n

But I’m not a very random sample, so let’s look at a few other blogs and try to appreciate why they write.\u00a0 I think I can place them into a few rough categories:<\/p>\n

Personal takes on professional \/ technical interests:<\/strong><\/p>\n