MY OBJECTIVE WAS OUTLINED IN AN e-mail and was sent on July 26, 2005,
to a consortium of Newsport-Mesa newsmakers:
Dear (Sir or Ms.),
This is Elia Powers from the Daily Pilot newspaper. I am writing
an article about bloggers in Newport-Mesa and am looking to see what
blogs some of our residents read and write. If you could respond by
e-mail with your name, I would appreciate it.
The number of blogs doubles every five months, according to
Technorati, a blog-tracking firm. Right now, there are approximately
14.2 million of them, and I wanted to know more about the bloggers in
our midst. Here's what my inquiry revealed.
POST NO. 1: THE MEANING OF A BLOG
It's difficult to discern true emotion over the Internet, yet
parts of Kiril Kundurazieff's e-mail did seem unmistakably sincere.
"Being online, and then becoming a blogger, changed my life," he
wrote.
And so, for this story, it seemed essential to contact
Kundurazieff, a longtime Costa Mesa resident who moved to Santa Ana a
month ago when his apartment lease ended.
Pre-interview research was a cinch. There's no shortage of space
on the Web, and Kundurazieff takes full advantage, including enough
personal fodder to piece together a short autobiography.
Like many who call themselves bloggers, Kundurazieff keeps his
postings close to home.
He writes about his daily experiences, his favorite restaurants,
even his politics.
In a one-week span, he described in detail a 45-minute tour of
Newport Beach's new Mormon temple and a 27-mile bicycle tour of Costa
Mesa.
Some of Kundurazieff's readers simply know him as the Cycling
Dude, the name of his 2-year-old blog dedicated to transportation on
two wheels. (He doesn't own a car.) Others know him from Sneakeasy's
Joint, the online diary he jokingly used to refer to as "Huntingport
Mesa's #1 Blog."
One thing was certain: Communicating with Kundurazieff would be
easy. If nothing else, bloggers are attentive to reader inquiries.
What good is your name and what value is this medium if you aren't
responding in real time?
The e-mail messages shot back and forth. It was time to use the
old-fashioned method of corresponding. The phone rang.
POST NO. 2: THE CATALYST
On a hectic Friday morning, a message flashes across my computer
screen: "I thought you might be interested in seeing the Web log I
launched recently."
The author is Geoff West, a Costa Mesa resident and an opinion
writer whose commentary regularly appears in the Daily Pilot's Forum
pages.
The link leads to A Bubbling Cauldron, a new site devoted
