+ 014 - 05.11.2010 - ACADEMIC

IN RESPONSE TO: MENA TROTT ON BLOGS

What do you do when you can put a face on The Powers That Be which affected the way your grew up? Little did I know that this sassy woman, Mena Trott, had a lot to do with my formative years. You know, the ones I spent blogging away my teenage angst on a not so little SixApart server called LiveJournal. Trott and her husband Ben just happened to found SixApart, so upon finding out this fact, I was drawn to learn more about what she had to say. After watching this video? Frankly, Mena is not only the enabler of my creative writing addiction, but she's also someone I'd like to meet personally to talk shop.

In her TEDTalk, Mena talks about the relevance of blogs in today's world.

Seeing as I'm winding down with these blog entries, I found it fitting for me to do a blog entry.. About blogging. My experience here has been primarily academic, but I have a personal blog. I microblog on Twitter. I am a proud citizen of the online world, and am exposed to everything it brings, whether it's advertising or news or recreation. I would not be where I am today without people like Mena Trott. The world would not be where it is today without people like Mena Trott.

To keep this relevant and less nostalgic, blogs have had a HUGE impact on advertising and marketing. They're direct channels to consumers, to companies and other online bodies willing to search them out. Mena makes a point of talking about how blogs connect people, how they "flatten the world" and put everybody equidistant from one another. This is true in the business environment as well. Online, anybody can post a comment or click a rating. Anybody can view a commercial, whether it's once or seventy-five times.

Blogging has put our brains on the front lines of the Internet, our experiences and feelings along with it. I don't think that blogging can hinder advertising at all, because it creates that sense of community and a safe space for people to talk candidly about their experiences, good or bad with a given product or service.