COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:

Do you blog? I do. Well, a little.

These days, blogs are white hot, among other things. Perhaps a definition or two for the non-bloggers would be helpful.

Blogs are a creature of the Internet, and “blog” is cyber-shorthand for “web log.” Beyond that, things get a little fuzzy as far as what is a blog and what isn’t and exactly what happens on them.

A new study from UCI, which is in Irvine, looked at who bloggers are and what they do on their favorite blogs. Should you care? Maybe.

The “blogosphere,” shorthand for the universe of blogs, can make things happen in a big way these days — in politics, in business, the media, you name it. More on that in a moment.

The first blogs, called personal blogs, were private affairs, online journals really, by individuals who built a simple website with words and pictures about their petunias or their pooch or their excellent adventure in Savannah in Georgia or the savanna in Africa, or both.

Most of them didn’t know or care if anyone ever saw their blog — they just enjoyed writing it. But then a funny thing happened in cyberspace.

Let’s say you’re searching for information about pooches or petunias or Savannah in Georgia or the other one when you run across a blog about exactly what you’re looking for.

If petunias are your passion, maybe you find someone named Lavinia and her Petunia Paradise blog.

For a while, you’re just a casual observer but then one day you ask Lavinia for advice on keeping your Pekinese from peeing on your petunias, which is making you crazy and the petunias depressed.

Since both your question and Lavinia’s answer — “put pepper spray on the petunias” — are posted on the blog, a Pekinese breeder from Pacoima says, “Holy Cat, Lavinia, whadda-u-nutz?” and all of a sudden a gazillion people are posting messages about Pekinese, pepper spray and who knows what all and checking Petunia Paradise every morning to catch the latest exchange.

That’s how it started. But shortly thereafter blogs grew up to be big and strong and became fancy things like the Drudge Report with ads and 10,000 links to other sites.

Remember Dan Rather? A lot of people do. It wasn’t some big-name investigative reporter from the New York Times or the Washington Post who blew the whistle on Rather’s “60 Minutes” piece about George Bush’s military service and accused Rather of presenting forged documents.

It was a handful of bloggers, who talked to a few more bloggers, who talked to a few more, some of whom served in the same Texas Air National Guard unit as Bush and posted convincing proof on blogs that statements and documents in the “60 Minutes” piece just didn’t make sense to anyone who knew what was going on in that unit at the time.

In short order, CBS was apologizing profusely, and Rather and a senior “60 Minutes” producer were unceremoniously shown the door, we’ll take those keys and that swipe card, thank you so much, pleasure, buh-bye.

So who are these bloggers and why do they blog the way they do? The UCI study was small, 15 bloggers, 13 of whom were college students, a common profile for habitual bloggers.

There was general agreement that what they liked best about blogging was the fast if not instant gratification of interacting with the blog’s host or other bloggers about their favorite topic — whether that’s the presidential race, Botox or the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, although I’m not sure why anyone would want to talk about the Devil Rays.

If you see something you love or hate in the New York Times, you can rejoice, or suffer, in silence, or send a letter to the editor, which has a one-in-seven-giga-million chance of being printed, and zero chance of being answered.

But on a blog, you have your say, which is brilliant of course, and then other bloggers agree, or not, faster than you can say, “That is like totally outrageous.”

According to Eric Baumer, one of the UCI researchers, that no-waiting, “one-to-one” interaction is a huge attraction for bloggers. “The main difference that blog readers seem to feel between blogs and more traditional media is the immediacy of the interaction,” Baumer said.

But I have to think another big attraction, especially if you start your own blog, is being able to make yourself heard, around the world, in a way that we couldn’t dream of before Al Gore gave us the Internet.

Come up with a snappy title, jot down a few thoughts, post a few pictures and wham — you and William Randolph Hearst are soul mates. It’s a funny world, no?

Neil Diamond explained all that 30 years ago, when no one knew a blog from a bog: “I am, I said, to no one there; and no one heard at all, not even the chair. I’m not a man who likes to swear, but I never cared for the sound of being alone.”

So there you have it. If you have something to say, start a blog. Start one even if you don’t.

Come to think of it, I might try it. I could call it “Everything I Know.” It would be the shortest blog in the history of blogs. Is there an award for that? There must be. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at ptrb4@aol.com.