A blog is a Web site with regularly updated chronological entries containing commentary, opinions, lies, rumors, half-truths and innuendos. More importantly, it’s where you can express your opinions, make comments, spread rumors, tell lies, create fiction and bore the world with your thoughts on just about any subject.
[…] In a lot of ways, reading a blog is like reading someone else’s diary or, better yet, an old Larry King column. Free flow. No continuity. No boring segues or transitions. No holds barred. And in most cases, shallow. Shallow is good — there’s nothing wrong with shallow. But there is one major difference. Even Larry King had to get his copy past an editor. And what an editor he must have been. But bloggers do not face this roadblock. They can run their mouths forever and ever. There is no word or space limitation in the Blogosphere. But some bloggers have been hammered by fellow bloggers for their stupid blog posts and have subsequently and sadly developed severe blogophobia, or fear of blogs. —Angus Lind
—Much ado about nothing: Web logs are everywhere and full of nothing (Times-Picayune)
A member of the writing establishment, whose position in the world of print is threatened by the expansion of blogging, misses an important point about blogging. What Lind smirkingly calls “blogophobia” is the subsitute for the editors and gate-keepers, the absence of which he laments in the blogosphere. Thus, it’s not just that anyone with a web page can be a writer, but anyone can also be an editor and critic. Some will be more informed than others, but it’s not hard to read blogrolls to figure out who the most respected bloggers are in whatever niche that interests you.
While there are probably millions of teen angst blogs out there, and while few of them are probably good reads for an outside audience, nobody is forcing Lind or anyone else to read stuff that’s boring. I have some sympathy for those who feel Google is swamped with commentary from crazed bloggers, but Google does offer a “News” search feature that restricts itself to news publications, and anyone who knows a tiny bit about searching can add “-blog -weblog” to a Google search. I also think Lind does a disservice to his readers by presenting content from “The Dullest Blog in the World” in order to support his claim that blogs can be dull. Via Doctor Daisy, who offers a rebuttal to Lind.
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We could also write an article entitled, "Much ado about nothing: Newspapers and news services are everywhere and full of nothing." As if an editor really stops some people from "run[ning] their mouths forever and ever." ;)
Lind's columns are usually this whiney, and the only response I got from him after I sent him an email with my rebuttal was, "Thanks for the note." Whatever. Despite the fact that his claims are bitter, they are also dated because how many columns have we seen that have said this already????
Excellent points, Will and Neha. I don't think weblogs will erase the role for professionals, but even if weblogs themselves are a flash in the pan, they are part of a much bigger change. Ling probably owes his job to the invention of moveable type, before which one was much less likely to encounter boring and self-centered texts, because one was much less likely to encounter texts, period.
Great point, Will. Angus Ling is bitter...how about seeing weblogs as an outlet to channel an individual's creativity into? A number of people, including myself, would perhaps never have taken our writing seriously if we hadn't been show the way to the blogosphere.
"A blog is a Web site with regularly updated chronological entries
containing commentary, opinions, lies, rumors, half-truths and
innuendos. More importantly, it's where you can express your opinions,
make comments, spread rumors, tell lies, create fiction and bore the
world with your thoughts on just about any subject."
And this different from the news media...how? ;-)
Just today I was reading about how the slammer worm "reboots your
computer without warning" through yahoo news. Problem is, it actually
reboots your computer after giving you A 1 MINUTE COUNTDOWN. The news
media can't even keep simple, verifiable facts straight. What do you
think happens with more complex issues from sources with an agenda?