A view of autism from along the spectrum

Rather than blogging about autism, today I’m going blog about autism blogs. In my geek lingo, I call this ‘going meta’.

A few weeks ago I wrote about my intent to more closely follow the writings of other bloggers. Fortunately, the combination of Firefox and Sage that I tried is working wonderfully for me to make my blog reading easier. I click a button and can tell when any of 20 blogs have been updated. Two or three clicks let me add another blog to the list. It’s simple and it works.

The benefit is that I’ve found the writings of other bloggers incredibly rich lately. Two obvious reasons for finding such great writing are that I’m reading more consistently and that the number of bloggers continues to grow. I also sense that there is another, more subtle reason, hidden just below the surface. I’ll explain what I think this reason is.

A term that can be found all over the internet recently is Web 2.0. The meaning behind this term provides insight to the other reason that I believe is impacting our blogging.

While there is not a consistent definition of what Web 2.0 means, the meaning that is relevant here refers to the social components of the web that have enabled individuals to actively participate in the exchange of ideas. The social components include publishing on Bloggerand Wordpress, photo sharing on Flickr, recommending news stories on Newsvine and sharing bookmarks on del.icio.us. The web is no longer a place to simply get information, it’s now a place to exchange information and ideas.

The point (yes, I had a point!) is that I sense that some of the recent richness in the blogs that I read is that we are gaining insights from each other. These insights get reflected in our writings which in turn further increases our knowledge and insight. Issac Newton referred to this as “standing on the shoulders of giants”.

We may not be giants (yet!), but we’re standing on each other’s shoulders. And the view may not be clear yet, but we can certainly see farther.