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Blog Binging Gorges the Net
Site Pixie writes "Most blogs are created by someone you don’t know, often about something you don’t care about, but that hasn’t stopped ‘blogging’ from becoming a remarkably ubiquitous phenomenon. There are even blogs about blogs such as The Blog Herald. It looks like everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame online. Estimates put the number of blogs to be in the tens of millions, with several factors influencing the count, such as whether a blog is available for public or private consumption. Carl Bialik investigates the intricacies of counting blogs, and shows how blog indexing sites like BlogPulse and Technorati are bursting at the seams with thousands of new blog entries everyday."
Apparently if I create a web page and upload some text to it, that's not a blog. But if I use an idiot proof content-management system to "type" my web page instead of "coding" it, I'm then creating a blog.
Once you start putting pictures and links on your blog, you're making a webpage...
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I maintain a site run via WordPress, that publishes an RSS feed. However, I don't use it to write about my (uninteresting to most of the universe) day to day life. Rather, I write semi-technical articles about subjects people might be interested in.
No doubt this is lumped in with the "blogs". However, it's just an extension of what I've done for years, but now I don't have to write static HTML pages and FTP them around. I using weblog software as a content management system and RSS to let people know when I've "published" something. Comments on the system allow me to get feedback and questions that everyone can see, rather than have me privately answer the same thing 10 times from my Inbox.
I would state that this categorically isn't a "blog", just a more useful incarnation of what people have been putting on the web for years. I'm pretty sure many other "blogs" are like mine (heck, looking at my RSS list, 99% will be better).
The internet has always been full of garbage (or, more PC'ly, "stuff I'm not interested in"). Just ignore it if you don't like it, and focus on the stuff you do like.
I have a weblog. I don't use it to look for fame; I use it to communicate experiences with friends and family, with the added feature that others who want information about what it's like to have these experiences may read my weblog to do so.
:-(.) We called it "a development log." Why do new words have to be invented for something, especially when they are just the lazy contraction of existing words that work perfectly well?
I find it a lot more effective than getting on the phone with various family members and friends in different time zones and repeating the same stories over and over again. It allows those who are interested to find out what's going on when they want to, and allows me to communicate any updates when I want to.
And I agree, the word "blog" is annoying, and, as far as I can tell, purely a media construct. Back in the day, when I was doing game development, I used to post a monthly development log on progress on the game. (Unforutnately, it's been lost to the mists of time - even the Wayback Machine can't get to it
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
Why are people so worried about blogs corrupting the Internet, anyway? I don't understand the problem. If Google happens to turn up my blog in a search for something, and my listing is distracting people from finding "reputable sources", then how reputable could said sources really be? I mean, if someone's silly blog like mine has a higher pagerank than someone's site, then I feel like the problem is theirs, not mine. Seriously. You probably need to work on your site content, if a lowly personal blog can get listings ahead of yours.
And I speak of myself as an example only as example. Because I know full well my blog doesn't threaten the Internet in any way. There's more traffic in a ghost town. Mine is little more than a gripe-list, and way for my family to see I'm still alive without needing to call me.
If you hate blogs, then don't read them. But why do so many people feel they are polluting the WWW?
VOTE!
It would be interesting to know how many people don't blog for fame-- blogging for personal or practicle reasons. Quite honestly, a blog is often better than a notebook. You can update your blog from any computer. Blogs are hard to lose. They don't fall apart after months of use. And you can read a blog anywhere on the internet.
I have four personal blogs just for that reason-- a wine blog because I have problems remember that great wine I had last year, a photo blog because it's easier to blog photos than it is to email them to friends, a house maintenance blog because damned if I can remember the last time I replaced the furnance filters, and a generic personal blog.
I don't consider this "blog spam" I don't hype or advertise them. Yes they are public, but it's easier to have a public blog, than a private blog for a dozen or so people. And, they are just so damn convienent.
My corporate firewall blocks anything slightly resembling a blog or higher.
Now that doesn't piss me off because I can't go read a bunch of morons thoughts on things that don't concern me, that pisses me off because normal people, who write articles about things that do concern me (day-to-day programming solutions/concepts) are switching over in droves to "blogging" their articles and ideas. So when I google about a particular c# or java problem I am having, and out of the top 10 results on the page 7 of them are posted to some damn blog site or in blog format, my #*$&#*$& corporate firewall won't let me get to the article.
What is wrong with a good old fashion article on a web page explaining how to get some new programming concept hammered out????
I'm out (from the Almost-a-blog-department)
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
TV is a vast wasteland of crap, with a few great exceptions like Galactica and Six Feet Under.
The blogosphere is full of nonsense, self-referential mental masturbation, and useless blogrolls. Then there are blogs like Daring Fireball, The Long Tail, and WWDNK which are each compelling in their own way.
Spam, though, is 100% crap. In that 10% lies the difference.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
You make it sound as if most bloggers are wasting their own and everyone else's time. Sure, that's probably true, but what the hell, man? Don't you make your living off people you don't know providing free content for your blog here? If Bill Gates said something like, "Most OSS programs are created by someone you don't know, and often do something you don't care about, but that hasn't stopped 'coding' from becoming a remarkably ubiquitous phenomenon. There are even programs about coding such as CVS. It looks like everyone wants their fifteen minutes of programming fame," it'd probably make you a little aggrivated, no? Have mercy on the 'upstarts,' o high and mighty Taco.
The NY Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and San Jose Mercury News all announced staff layoffs last week. Where do you think those folks are going? To the Web, to eat their former employers' collective lunches. Lots of these folks have real expertise, and are bringing their contacts and rolodexes with them.
I speak from experience. I took the plunge in 2000. I was the computer-assisted reporting director at a daily newspaper that was clueless about the future of the web, and unwilling to invest in the basics (e-mail for repoters ... doh!). So I left to write for technology sites, and have been doing it ever since.
RichM
Data Center Knowledge