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Because They Can...

One might ask why someone would use or create something like BlogChatter - Realtime Weblog Aggregation and the answer is the topic of this post (same answer to the philosophical question, "why do dogs lick themselves?").

Blogchatter allows you to peek into the fast paced universe of weblogs (or blogosphere) by providing a rolling log of who is posting a new weblog entry right now. And these listings live only for 30 seconds before being knocked off for the next ones.

This is an extenson of the blog "what's new" listings at weblogs.com and http://blo.gs/.

it works like this. Weblog software such as MovableType or Radio have a setting where you can say, "Every time I make a new post to my blog, send a 'ping' or short message to weblogs.com and/or blo.gs that contains the title, name of my blog, URL to the entry, and time entered." These sites then are able to more or less dynamically list the relstive most recent weblogs posts from around the world.

Blogchatter does the same thing, but it happens in near-realtime, and continually updates itself.

Now the question comes back, why would you bother wanting to know that? Most of the blog names that fly by are strange, exotic, curious, un-interesting, or just plain puzzling. But each one that flies by, just a few seconds apart, sometimes many in a burst, represents an individual's own universe they are pounding out and publishing to the world.

Here is a small sample of "chattered" blogs in about a 3 minute time span.

• Snapping Links II


• Your Pal Bill


• TummyMonsters


• Strange Glow


• Isopixel


• Jaquinzinhos


• ~.:Smile & Say YAY!:.~


• Tiger: Raggin' & Rantin'


• aspirasi


• World / Independent Film


• blind pilot


• ShowMe WebLog


• Jay Reding.com


• Le Journal de Lou @ U-blog


• War Liberal


• Hellblazer


• visualog


• argh!


• Small Business Information


• NSLog();


• The Thought Offering


• Thinking It Through


• Communication Culture


• Mugendai


• Raven


• Weblog


• Susie's Meanderings


• Ginadapooh's Blog


• linkfilter


• All AgitProp, all the Time...


• The Reel


• Live in the Delirious Cool


• Perverse Access Memory


• AZ Bear's Blog

It is alive out there in the blogosphere.