I've now been attempting to moblog for 14 days and Im getting better at it. However, I have discovered one, no actually three major differences between moblogging and regular blogging, which have a tendency to make me NOT want to moblog :(.

The first difference is simple: it's free for me to blog (at least when Im on a university network, at places with free wifi etc) or it feels as if it's free (because I pay a monthly flatrate subscription for my internet connection). But it costs me money to moblog, and every post counts. Especially when Im sending pictures home to Denmark from the US. I can access two US networks with my current mobile network provider, one of them is pretty expensive and the other is affordable. Problem is that my mobile phone (as if strangely programmed!) keeps switching to the expensive network. This means that my phone bill has more than doubled since I got over here and started sending MMS's. Knowing that Im paying to publish makes a difference, it makes me think more carefully about what I want to spend money on publishing or not. I.e. my posting becomes less casual and more deliberate than my blogging.

The second difference is that of not being able to compose your messages in advance. I don't know how other bloggers do it, but longer posts are usually posts I have been thinking about for a little while, and posts I have written "inside my head" before I access the blog software. You could say that I blog "in advance" of the actual act of blogging. Then, when I have written a post, unless it is a quick note-like post, I immediately check on it after posting, just to make sure there arent too many spelling mistakes. So quite often my regular posts are also edited immediately after the first publication of them.

- Now with the moblog, you are supposed to take a picture, add max a few senteces to it and send if off immediately. This is really difficult for me to get used to. I tend to take a picture on the streets thinking that I will compose the text later, when I get to sit down in peace and quiet, get on the metro, reach the office etc. Then I forgot about doing it, or I experience that the moment has already faded and I cant really remember what to say. Or I end up writing posts that are too long, and more suited for a regular blog entry, rather than the moblog.
- Also, I feel intimidated by the fact that I cant edit my post once I have sent it. I have to get to a computer, log on to albino gorilla and enter my post before I can do that, and _if_ Im moblogging on the fly, a long time might pass between sending the post and editing it, and I know that people might have read it in between.
- Im trying to change my habits now, so I really moblog on site with both images and text, but only short text. Then if I want to add more I can go into Albino Gorilla and add more text (rather than edit) at a later point in time.

The final difference is that of when and what I blog. Just like I imagined, I tend to moblog when Im bored, waiting for something, in between places with nothing else to do.
- Or I moblog when Im in social situations, where I'd like it to look like Im texting someone, because noone can see that Im just texting a webpage, not a friend (I dont sms friends a lot here, because of time difference).
- I moblog, when I see something that is visually interesting or catchy, but need not necessary hold any deeper meaning, or give way to a lot of content, such as a beautiful view, a funny poster osv. Framing it more academically, I think you could say, that I've gone from a linear to iconic thinking, or at least Im starting to think more in snapshots rather than in stories. I moblog the unusual (currently that which is significantly different from Danish culture) rather than the mundane and usual (though this it really what I set out to blog, everyday life here). I wonder if this focus on the extraordinary, the different also naturally comes with being in a new place and in a new culture. I'll have to moblog when I go back to Copenhagen, just to see which kind of events or images I'll blog when in a familiar place, visually as well as culturally.

More to follow...
# posted by Lisbeth at: 20:04