Seven Inches Of Sense

Sunday, June 13, 2004

Time to Blog

".......In a way, blogs represent everything the Web was always supposed to be: a mass medium controlled by the masses, in which getting heard depends solely on having something to say and the moxie to say it."

It is a rather condescending piece in places, but they will have a lot of readership and some solid information. I have cut it down to sift out an inordinate amount of fluff> I wouldn't bother with the whole thing unless you feel enriched by comments like."a quirky Camelot moment in Internet history" . Puke

Time Magazine
Sunday, Jun. 13, 2004
Meet Joe Blog

Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they're fast, funny and totally biased
By LEV GROSSMAN; ANITA HAMILTON

......Over the past five years, blogs have gone from an obscure to a genuine alternative to mainstream news outlets, a shadow media empire that is rivaling networks and newspapers in power and influence. Which raises the question: Who are these folks anyway? And what exactly are they doing to the established pantheon of American media?....

.......Unlike a big media outlet, bloggers focus their efforts on narrow topics, often rising to become de facto watchdogs and self-proclaimed experts. Blogs can be about anything: politics, sex, baseball, haiku, car repair. There are blogs about blogs......

......What makes blogs so effective? They're free. They catch people at work, at their desks, when they're alert and thinking and making decisions. Blogs are fresh and often seem to be miles ahead of the mainstream news. Bloggers put up new stuff every day, all day, and there are thousands of them...... They're human. They come to us .... from an individual. They represent no, they are ? the voice of the little guy.

......Blogs showcase some of the smartest, sharpest writing being published. Bloggers are unconstrained by such journalistic conventions as good taste, accountability and objectivity ? and that can be a good thing. Accusations of media bias are thick on the ground these days, and Americans are tired of it. Blogs don't pretend to be neutral: they're gleefully, unabashedly biased, and that makes them a lot more fun. "Because we're not trying to sell magazines or papers, we can afford to assail our readers," says Andrew Sullivan, a contributor to TIME and the editor of andrewsullivan.come "I don't have the pressure of an advertising executive telling me to lay off. It's incredibly liberating."

........Some bloggers earn their bias the hard way ? in the trenches. Military bloggers, or milbloggers in Net patois, post vivid accounts of their tours of Baghdad, in prose covered in fresh flop sweat and powder burns, illustrated with digital photos

........But blogs are about much more than war and politics. ....Six years ago, a philosophy professor in New Zealand named Denis Dutton started the blog Arts & Letters Daily artsandlettersdaily.com to create a website "where people could go daily for a dose of intellectual stimulation." Now the site draws more than 100,000 readers a month.

posted by brando at 7:39 PM
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