The International Internet

One of my favorite features of Blogger is the "Next Blog" button on the header toolbar. Clicking on it will lead you to a random blog located on the Blogger server. Sometimes, I click it once or twice, just to see what comes up.

As one can imagine, a random sampling of the site exposes a rich diversity not only in subject matter, but in language and nationality as well. Generating five different blogs will usually bring at least four not in English. Usually one of the languages will be one that I do not even recognize.

Using the same cookie-cutter tool set that was used to create this blog, thousands of people from around the globe are able to create sites that are uniquely their own. Perusing through Blogger is like walking through a virtual Epcot, sampling a variety of cultures instantaneously.

Interestingly, a great deal of these foreign sites also contain a smattering of American references. Portions of the blog will be in English, or have pictures containing English words or sayings. Blogger itself was developed in San Fransisco and is owned by Google, and is therefore inherently American.

The reason for its diversity is because of access. Creating a blog is free and easy; a fact as equally true in the United States as it is in, say, Venezuela. At an unprecedented level, people everywhere have equal and unlimited access to the same creation engine, provided that they have Internet access and computer literacy, resources that are rapidly becoming available to lower levels of economic welfare.

Tension between the local and the global exists at the very core of Blogger, as it does with each sharing site on the Web. More and more videos on YouTube are of people speaking in a foreign tongue. Users on Facebook now come from a variety of ethnicities.

The world is shrinking, to the point that it can fit into a web browser.