Blogging is officially in the mainstream

I was suspecting that blogging is getting more popular than some people want it to. But today I got two reasons to belive that blogging is officially in the mainstream now.

The first reason is my mother. She usually tries to stay as far from technology topics as I try to stay out of business discussions. Today though she was aksing me all about blogging. We spend about two hours talking on the subject with me giving her an overview of the general concepts as well as the demonstration of practical side with LiveJournal. She was very interested. She made a whole bunch of schemes and notes in her notebook (the paper version). I have a strong feeling that she will join the blogging world in the near future.

The second reason is “Cosmopolitan“. If you were living under the rock for the last few decades, “Cosmopolitan” (or “Cosmo” for short) is one of the most popular magazines for women. It covers a broad range of topics modern women may be interested in – fashion, sex, travelling, housekeeping, getting married to a rich guy and stuff like that. From time to time one can find technology articles in “Cosmo”. They are usually on a very basic introductory level, but deep enough for a number of women to go out and try things. The latest issues of “Cosmopolitan” has an article about different ways of communicating in the Internet. It talks about emails, instant messaging (ICQ, MSN, etc), forums, and blogs. While emails and instant messaging don’t surprise me at all, blogs do. Not only it shows how to use LiveJournal (LiveJournal is one of the most popular blog services in Russia thus it is very logical to find an article about it in the Russian edition of “Cosmopolitan”), but it introduces readers to some parts of netiquette and terminology.

All of these lead me to believe that blogging is interesting for way too more people than I could have thought. Some people are in such a need of a diary software and means to share their thoughts and experiences that they are ready to overcome technology difficulties and laziness. Who would have thought of this five or ten years ago?