When I started blogging, it was on a Wordpress blog.
For the Patriot blog I reported news and made commentary on campus and local events. There were a few other blogs that focused on campus happenings and reported on them as news. In this environment who reports on something first and breaks new information on a story is important. If something crazy was happening with the AUSC or there was an event on Sproul, the first blog to report on it set the story. Other blogs could still talk about something, but it was after the story had been broken and unless they had something exciting and unique it was simply a rehash of old news, often with a hyperlink to the original post.
This is where timestamps are important. In Wordpress, the default timestamp is when the post is published. In Blogger it is when the post is first started, even if it is a draft for hours or days before being published. There were times when I would write a post full of news, commentary, and pictures about something. Before I published it, I would look around to see if any other place had reported on the story. I then published the post knowing I was the first to tell the world about it.
A few minutes later, I would see a post on Beetlebeat. It would report the exact same story as I did, but the timestamp would be 10 or 15 minutes before mine, even though it was published after my post.
I know timestamps can be easily changed to anything. However, the default method on Blogger is misleading.
This time difference might seem petty, but it is important to people who make a point of writing news posts. It is also fun to see how an individual can post a story before an entire news organization with dozens of people can put something together.
As an example of how the timestamp can be off, after I publish this post I will publish a post about my trip to Berkeley (using the default timestamp both times). The Berkeley post is being published around 3:35 AM on the 29th, but the post will indicate it was published a week ago.
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