Everything began when I wrote a simple letter to Rebecca Blood: "I'm an Iranian journalist … ." and an invitation for an interview. Unbelievable result! She, the writer of "Rebecca's Pocket" weblog (www.rebeccablood.net), replied my e-mail very soon and fortunately accepted my suggestion. So we discussed in deep about blogging through a dozen of e-mails. I tried to freely talk to her and she did so in response. I hope you see this interview an interesting and new experience.

This interview will be published both in Persian and in English in "Computer and Communication World" magazine web site (www.ccwmagazine.com) and its copy on paper.

I usually post to my site three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. When I started my site, I think I was posting every day of the week! I refer to this period as "the honeymoon phase", when I was so much in love with my weblog that I didn't want to spend any time apart from it. After a few months I began posting only Monday through Friday. In November, 2001 I began writing my book, and I introduced a schedule of posting only three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday). I am still on that schedule, and I must say that I enjoy the free time this allows me.
By the way, my way of posting is rather unusual. Most people add entries to their sites as they think of them, several over the course of the day. I have always done my site all at once, so I post a series of posts all at one time rather than throughout the day. I collect
interesting posts all the time, but I save them on a special page and then go through and select the ones I want to write about when I prepare an update.

I think the longest I ever went without posting was three weeks. I often stop posting for a week or two, if I'm visiting my family or at a conference. I just announce on my site that I will be away from my computer, and point to a few good weblogs to keep my readers entertained in my absence. I think it's important to take a break once in a while, and I have no interest in being a slave to my weblog.

I started my weblog in April 1999. Two things prompted me to do it. First, I was working at two desks and I wanted to put my list of bookmarks up on the Web so I could access them from any computer. Many of the pages of links on my site today are based on those links.
Second, I had just witnessed the formation of the weblog community, and I was in love with weblogs. Everytime I read one, I thought "I could do that!" I was already sending my friends numerous links every day in email. Starting a weblog was simple: I just put those same
links (and my opinion) on the Web instead of emailing them.

The first thing was that one of the existing weblogs found my site and linked to me one week after I started, so that introduced me to the weblog community. Since then, I've been featured on numerous radio shows and quoted in many news articles, but I have to say, quite
honestly, that I get very little traffic from those things--and the traffic I get usually looks at my site once out of curiousity, and then never comes back.
I believe my traffic has grown primarily through word-of-mouth and through links from other weblogs. Weblog audiences tend to be small and to grow slowly, but they will grow if you continue to update your site regularly. My audience is still not as big as many of the star
bloggers, but it continues to grow steadily, and I am grateful for every single person who comes to read my site.

No. I have an English degree, but I had not had any writing jobs before I started my site.

I have seen Chinese weblogs, Spanish weblogs, French weblogs, Hebrew weblogs, Iranian weblogs, and Dutch weblogs. When I went to the Blogtalk conference in Vienna, I was introduced to Polish weblogs, Romanian weblogs, German weblogs, and many others. It seems that there are weblogs across the world, wherever people can get to a computer
with an Internet connection, there are weblogs. Blogcount <http://dijest.com/bc/> is trying to discover how many weblogs there are worldwide. I would guess that today there are between 500,000 and 1 million, but the actual figure is anyone's guess.

I define a weblog as a frequently updated website, with entries arranged in reverse-chronological order. Beyond that, a weblog can be about anything and everything. Whatever people care about, they will post on their weblog. That might be their jobs, their family, the
news, or their gardens.

The main difference is in the format. There are lots of kinds of web pages, but a weblog is easy to maintain, and because it's updated so frequently, people have a reason to come back every day.

I like to write about whatever is on my mind, but I think there is room for all kinds of weblogs. I know many people who have created strong professional reputations for themselves through their weblogs by posting about issues that affect their professions. These people vary in their approach: some limit themselves to post only about their professions, and others allow themselves the liberty to post about other topics as they wish. I do think that anyone attempting to use a weblog to enhance their professional reputation should be aware that potential employers and clients might be reading, and to make sure that the majority of material is in some way related to their field.
I think weblogs that focus on only on topic provide a great service for the reader. There is so much information published on the Web every day. Having one place that will collect articles that are related to one subject is a great time saver for readers who are interested in the subject. So I encourage anyone who is passionate about a subject to create a weblog about that topic.
But it is up to the individual blogger. I tell people to write about what interests them most. If you are obsessed with one subject, make that the focus of your site. If you would get bored posting only on one subject, then make a general interest weblog and post about the many things you are interested in. Or create or join a group weblog (like www.command-post.org, for example) and contribute posts about one subject of interest to that site.

To some extent, bloggers have always looked out for each other, even without a formal organization. Most bloggers will inform another blogger if their site design has been stolen, or if someone is plagiarizing their material. So I don't know if I think a formal organization of bloggers is necessary or would be attractive to members of the community. As it is, I think most bloggers feel a kinship with other webloggers, and because of that, they look out for each other.

I have heard suggestions that there should be a code of ethics for weblogs--in fact, I wrote one myself <http://www.rebeccablood.net/handbook/excerpts/weblog_ethics.html>
And there may be the need for bloggers who aspire to practice journalism with their weblogs to form a professional organization that will agree on standards of conduct, and provide a distinction between blogger-journalists and others. Most events can issue press releases
to a very limited number of people, so this distinction will be crucial for anyone who wishes to practice journalism via their own publication, rather than for a more established organization.

I mean, event planners usually issue press releases only to members of the working press. Even established free-lance writers can have trouble gaining access to press conferences, and other newsworthy events unless they can demonstrate that they are under contract with an
established news organization to cover a particular event. Bloggers, though they may be experts, will probably have a hard time gaining equal access to such events. It's possible that the existence of a professional organization of blogger-reporters might provide some credibility to bloggers who aspire to be journalists, and thus help them gain the access they need to really report the news.

With regard to social groups of bloggers, there are many groups like that already in the United States, and I believe in some other countries as well. Some use <http://blog.meetup.com/> to arrange local meetings on the third wednesday of every month. Other bloggers have formed local groups like NYC Bloggers <http://www.nycbloggers.com/> and DFW Bloggers <http://www.dfwblogs.com/> in order to keep in touch and bring their online friendships into the real world. Though I don't belong to such a group, most of the people I know where I now live have weblogs--that's how I know them. Many people don't realize that the social connections that are created by weblogs are often carried over into the real world.

I am so happy to be featured in your magazine.