Blogging bragging rights

Isn’t this always the case? I remember those early days of the Interweb when it was a rush to be the first, and I’m not talking about making geeky websites and whatnot. No, it’s way more stupid than that, and you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Those various sites with message boards where someone has to be the first person to post a reply for the soul purpose of being the first one to do it. It said very little and pertained just as much to the initial topic of the post. It would just say, “First!” That’s it. One word, and it’s a mind numbing mentality that still goes on today.

This is what I think about when I read this:

Someone, somewhere created the very first Web log. It’s just not quite clear who.

It may not be one of the Internet’s grandest accomplishments, but with the number of active bloggers hovering somewhere around 100 million, according to one estimate, there are some serious bragging rights to be claimed by the first person who provably laid fingers to keyboard in the traditional bloggy way.

Was the first blogger the irascible Dave Winer? The iconoclastic Jorn Barger? Or was the first blogger really Justin Hall, a Web diarist and online gaming expert whom The New York Times Magazine once called the “founding father of personal blogging”? [cnet]

Bragging rights, to me, means who really cares? Even if you were the first, then good for you. That doesn’t change a whole lot for me.

Benefits of being able to declare bragging rights? Wikipedia will smote those who attempt to pull your name off their pages, your name will go into traditional history books, and I’ll give you a cookie.