Blog/Web log - A new easy and interactive website building tool for a non-net savvy radiologist

Recently, there has been no escaping the mention of blogs in the media. Blogging has emerged as a social phenomenon, which has impacted politics, business, and communication. Blogging software has enabled people with limited knowledge of the Internet to publish their thoughts online and participate in a global conversation; whereas the Blogosphere has hyperaccelerated the spread of information. Technorati, a blog search engine is now tracking over 7.8 million Weblogs. and 937 million links, and reports that there are about 30,000 to 40,000 new blogs created a day. The majority of people who blog do so as a hobby, using blogs to publish their thoughts, feelings, and viewpoints on whatever topics interest them. Blogging software also enables people to post pictures, music, and more recently videos. For many people blogs are used as online journals or diaries; other people use blogs to communicate with their family and friends. Whether people generate revenue with their blogs or use them as a hobby the one thing they all have in common is that they are part of the Blogosphere, or network of blogs that gives people a voice and allows them to spread information at an unprecedented rate. Although searching PubMed produces few results for "blog" (6 relevant articles of 24), "weblog" (1 article), web log (8 entries of varying relevance), and "blogging" (4 articles) (none of which were in Radiology, RadioGraphics, AJR, or JVIR), blogging might well become an important means of information transfer in Radiology also. As radiology is an image-based science, a blog is a satisfying endeavor in that you can share your experiences with others instantaneously In this context, I would like to submit my experience with easy method for building a Web site known as blogging (maintaining a Web log). As a radiologist, I use my blogy (http://www.sumerdoc.blogspot.com/; or http://www.indianradiology.com/) to post interesting cases from my routine practice along with any interesting abstracts I come across during my day-to-day work. The success of this project can be measured by the fact that in the last full year of "rad-blogging." more than 30,000 visitors came to the site from all over the world, with thousands of queries from patients, colleagues, and many interested students. Rad-blogging might well become a new easy method of information exchange and opinion building in Radiology.