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

[mentalapse.livejournal.com]

Interestingly enough, the bloggers who were given official media credentials for the DNC were kind of the big jokes around the office. They tended to be far less organized and diligent about getting housing, etc. Most people wondered why we were taking them seriously. I doubt any of these folks saw themselves as real "media" types--and these were some of the most obsessive of bloggers.

There's certainly a small percentage of bloggers who do crazy stuff like fact-checking, but from personal experience, even purposeful blogging about news or politics or whatever is a chance to vent one's spleen, keeping the benefits relatively high compared to the costs (especially for those of us who can do their blogging while ostensibly doing real paying work).