On one such walk, we (no, not the dog and me. The two or three others walking with me) started talking about what the blogger gains by blogging. This, I'm sure, is going to be a rich field of research in the coming years. One thing that the results of this research will determine, I'm sure, is who will make a good blogger and who won't.
Anyway, I offered that the way I'm using blogging -- seeking out content that makes me think, offering a comment on that person's blog and following it up with a post on my own -- reminds me of "water-cooler talk", one of the great pre-blog social networking constructs of the 20th century.
That day, our behavioral ethologist was walking with us (she gets a kick out of how I interact with my dog, I think).
I mentioned water-cooler talk and how I was using the blogs, then mentioned that I was also coming to learn that the water-cooler metaphor wasn't quite accurate because (as of yet, anyway) I have no idea if the person on whose blog I posted a comment comments back to me on their own blog. This isn't people gathering around a water-cooler to talk, she said, this was more like dogs urinating on trees. Wild dogs and wolves, it seems, will go through their territory about once every three weeks to see (to smell, really) who's been by, read what they wrote (okay, smell what they urinated. Adds a whole new dimension to running out of ink, doesn't it?)
This wasn't marking territory, she explained. It was more learning who was doing what, who'd been by, finding out what they were up to. It was the canine way of avoiding conflicts and making bonds.
Hmm...
"...avoiding conflicts and making (social) bonds."
Hmmm...
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