One of the central defining aspects of the Boidem has been its consistently, the realization on my part that a web column must be judged not only on its content and its style, but also, and quite basically, by its continued existence. The purpose of this introduction is to attempt to outline the defining aspects of web essays, and of the Boidem in particular, so that by the time we get to the linear end we'll actually be able to judge, or at least evaluate, whether something consistent has actually been learned from all this. I've called what I've written columns , basically for wont of a better name. There is, after all, something of a newspaper-like nature to them. Not the news section, but rather the editorials.
Columnists react and respond to the news, to their surroundings, to what catches their eye.
I saw myself as doing that sort of thing, with a primary focus on computers and the internet and perhaps a secondary focus on education, virtual identities and community. Frankly, I'm more than a bit surprised that I've succeeded in writing as many columns as I have because even though millions of people have become netizens since I started writing, in numerous ways the realm of internet related issues has contracted . I started calling what I refer to here as web essays . But if we know what a column is, and don't have to go too many lengths to define one, defining, and perhaps simply describing, a web essay is a more difficult task. My definition is one that derives from experience, from experimentation, from finding out what works for me.