Comment on blogs and blogging.

[randomness]

Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Media says in http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Microsoft-Clears-Space-for-Bloggers-38606.html (a story on why Microsoft's release of MSN Spaces is no big deal):

"'Web logs as an activity require diligence and commitment and a burning desire to say something and tell it to the world. That's why it's just not a mainstream activity,' he said.

"'Most people don't create content, they consume content, and we have a word for them: consumers. Far more people want to read others' content than create their own.'"

I don't disagree with Gartenberg--either about the release of MSN Spaces essentially being a non-event, or that most people are consumers--but I never particularly thought of blogging as requiring much diligence or commitment.

I'm just somewhat surprised that blogging is characterized as something requiring anything but the ability to froth at the keyboard. Always seemed to me to be a pretty low bar.

After all, isn't there the stereotype of "some blogger in pajamas" floating around; that doesn't strike me as the image of someone particularly diligent or committed.

Comments

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

It seems like Gartenberg is only considering bloggers who are more like writers or journalists, blogging for the purposes of informing, entertaining, or editorializing. I think he is not considering the people I would consider "social bloggers", those whose main purpose is communicating and interacting with a circle of friends. I consider myself very much one of the latter, and I think many of the people whose blogs I read also fit into that category.