I've just stumbled upon this strange article. It's a bit old, I hope it hasn't been posted before.

http://www.microcontentnews.com/articles/borgjournalism.htm

Do you agree with the guy?

(Side question: are there any journalists here on SP?)

I am always cautious when dealing with those "phenomena" of mass culture. They are a bit like viruses - the chief and in most cases only goal of such a phenomenon is to be a phenomenon. In other words: reproduce, reproduce, reproduce. And put your crappy DNA/RNA wherever possible.

That's akin to how reality shows operate. Blogs of the Big Brother kind are misfortunate attempts at proving that everyone can write. No, not everyone can write. However, the more shallow and uninspired it is, the more people will read and it's publicity that counts in this scheme. Like with reality shows, some of those guys might even actually embrace mediocrity with a clear purpose in mind. It simply sells. Of course I'm completely average and a man like all of you, I mean, us. Just go bump my damned counter!

The other group is more similar to Goths. You know, everyone can be unique. Just like everyone else damn it, but they won't tell that part to you. Or to themselves, for that matter. And everyone with potential can be a real genuine Dark Lord. It only by coincidence so happens that the author of a given blog has that potential :rolleyes: Of course, no one understands him and the life really, really sucks. Like his poetry, apparently. You know, it's unique art. And unique art has to suck. Or it's not unique. Oh well, that all those unique guys write all the same sucky poems doesn't really matter...

This one (http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=000412) is a parody, so it's been made to suck in an exaggerated fashion, but believe me - some of that stuff sucks immensely harder. Another indispensible factor is that the author doesn't care. So much he doesn't care about other people and what they think, that he feels an urgent current need to post his dark musings on some bugged website and add it to all possible search engines' directories :rolleyes:

Back to blogs, though. Blogs for the major part fall somewhere between those two poles. Rare exceptions amongst them employ proper spelling and grammar and those are readable. Of the readable, some even exhibit semi-rational structure and seem to be guided by a vaguely undefined purpose. The rest is not worth the bytes on the server.

If you have any more desire for old man's ramblings, help yourself (http://chevalier.szm.com/writing.html#yourself). Now go and meditate on the hopelessness of life.

That is quite a mouthful of pessimistic views on blogs. Frankly, I can't help but show off the optimistic reality of web blogs: Web Blogs are awesome!

There are group blogs such as 'The Command Post'
that are conservative but try to be fair and balanced. It is an excellant source to log on and catch news stories that the liberal partisan press wouldn't touch. Google surf for it if you wish, I'm too lazy to post URLs.

There are web blogs that are personal, political, and succeed in informing people about the latest news items of the day. All bloggers link to each other from time to time so you can get a wide assortment of Blogger Sites in a short period of time. All blogger sites conservative and liberal are competing for the audiences attention... It is only a matter of time before web blogs evolve into 'Super Blogs' where you can press a button on a news item and instantly get a different Blogger's Perspective on the news article.

They are the best thing since Rush Limbaugh. Taken in a quantity of 12 or more you can get all of the information you'll ever need. In the future, it is quite inevitable that the Blog Rollers will convert their Blog Rolls into somthing much more Interactive, that condenses 24 blogs into 1 blog. It's possible to that now actually...
<A HREF = "http://www.ebloggy.com/Optimist">American Optimist</A>