From blogging to 'vlogging'

Teenagers will probably be interested in trying this: video blogging, or "vlogging" - what Google just announced it's going to start hosting. Vlogging "is still a new phenomenon but is expected to take off as Web space becomes cheaper - or even free - and digital cameras become ever more sophisticated," the BBC reports. Teen bloggers, who love playing around with various media, undoubtedly will have fun with this. But there's a downside they and grownups need to be aware of, the same one found in moblogs (blogging with mobile phones), podcasting (blogging with Web and iPod), and regular blogs: the unwise way teens represent themselves with images and video, thinking it's all just among friends (for an extreme, not a common, example, see "Self-published child porn"). Back to the BBC: "The move to let people upload video to Google's servers comes as the firm trials a video search service.... Google's interest in blogging - web logging - stems back to 2003 when it bought popular blog site, Blogger.com."