Why Open Cafe?
Why is IPhone Cafe open to the public? It’s a long story but here goes……..
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In September 2005, a few days after hurricane Katrina made landfall, I found myself watching too much CNN and becoming frustrated with news coverage of the storm; especially CNN’s cable news coverage. I should have changed channels or just turned off the TV. I didn’t understand why, in the middle of an unfolding disaster, CNN’s commentators used air time to assign blame rather than report the news. Years before Katrina, it was no secret that a Category 5 storm moving ashore from a particular direction could flood the city. So why hadn’t news company’s like CNN and others used their resources to increase public aware of the threat, and possibly prevent the disaster or reduce it’s scale? Why wait until after the event to point fingers and assign blame?
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After one particularly disappointing news segment, I was agitated to the point where I needed to vent. I don’t normally write “Letters to the Editor”, however Anderson Cooper’s segment put me over the edge. I wasn’t sure where or how to express my view. I’d heard about “weblogs”, but didn’t know much about them. For me, the “Blogsphere” was just a term used by newscasters, especially those appearing on 24 hour news networks. As far as I knew, blogging was an electronic form of “Letters to the Editor”; increasingly popular and open to the public. As such, a blog seemed like the appropriate channel to express my view.
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Using Google I found listings for dozen’s of weblogs and began looking through them. After reviewing several sites, I noticed that most had something in common. They lacked a link or a button labled “Click Here to Create Your Post“. After reviewing several more weblogs, I finally got the point. Weblogs provided “posting” permission only to the owner of the weblog or to a small group of associates.
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This was somthing of a let-down. I wanted to express my view, not begin authoring my own weblog.
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My experience with the Internet began in the days when Lynx was the popular web browser and, usenet was the system of choice for shared discussions because it contained thousands of newsgroups and allowed almost anyone to create messages.
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Eventually, I found a weblog with a ”Click here to post” button at the bottom of page one. As a result, my first internet weblog posting appeared on a site called the Black Republican. I was glad the administrators of Black Republican chose to allow postings from folks outside their inner circle.
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I started IPhone Cafe in January 2008, thinking the blog might be useful to Apple IPhone owners looking to share experiences about this remarkable new device. With that in mind, I left the blog open so anyone could register and post. Aside from the Katrina posting in 2005, I’ve had little or no exposure to details of the blogging world. However, since beginning IPhone Cafe in January of this year, I’ve learned a bit about WordPress and increasingly appreciate the extent of the social and professional network that’s grown up around blogging. Yesterday, I found an article titled “Guest Blogging, Woe and Dismay“. After reading it, I’m not so sure that allowing open access to a blog is socially acceptable.
