A little brown frog with shimmery bright green lipstick now lives at the edge of a pond in my yard.
Such are the riches of the internet that one minute you can be googling “frog + Massachusetts” and the next minute you’ve hopped into a world full of pre-blogs* full of frogs.
For example, when Otto and Friedo Berninghausen created their tadpole-identification website, they were talking about frogs, not introducing themselves. But consider their wiggly tadpole graphic (above). Consider their instructions for ordering water-resistant tadpole books from the Nabu Natur Shop:
Include 14.90 EURO cash and add about 2.00 or 3.00 EURO for postage.
Another pre-blogger I just got to know is talented nature photographer Mike Redmer. Like any blogger, he’s eager to share stuff he just learned and thinks you’ll appreciate–for example, he’s written articles about the diet of female bird-voiced treefrogs and how to take a portrait of your snake. I also learned that he’s an expert in “skeletochronology.” Talk about sharing personal information….
I feel I’ve also “met” Wellesley instructor Marcy Thomas. She has piled up some wonderful web links on her course pages. I love her photo-permission statement on her page about vernal pools, which seems to come straight from an older, friendlier internet:
Photos were taken by Marcy Thomas and VPOP students and will be updated as better ones become available. You are welcome to use them.
If you have some time to waste on the internet–hey, if you don’t, why the heck are you reading my blog? I urge you to read the “pre-bloggers” in your field.
* I made up the word “pre-blog” to describe the kind of personal, amateur web pages you can find all over the web. Reading “around the edges” of their pages, you feel you get to know the authors–the kind of generous, enthusiastic people who’d spend hours to share what they know about little brown frogs.
3 responses so far ↓
1 jr // Sep 17, 2003 at 7:51 am
First post-modernists now pre-bloggers. Ergg, I just can’t keep up.
2 Betsy Devine // Sep 17, 2003 at 7:56 am
The big difference is that pre-bloggers are fun to read…
3 Laura Reznick // Sep 17, 2003 at 11:01 am
Cool site! Check out my new blog, Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope – The Great Grassroots Campaign. Also, check out my Dean stores, The Great Grassroots Campaign and You Have The Power. The proceeds from the shop will be given to the new Generation Dean chapter on campus. If you feel like linking to any of the sites I gave you, I’d be happy to add a link to your site on my blog. Keep up the good work with your site.