April 9, 2002

  • Although most bloggers routinely use their posts for personal journaling, there is always the possibility that an occasional post here of there might resound with live, earth-shattering news.


    There are, indeed, some professional journalists for magazines and newspapers who keep a blog to publish "news" they either can't or don't care to run by an editor.  They tend to view their blogs as news/information outlets and ponder the revolutionary possibility that eventually an amalgam of disparate, de-centalized bloggers can congeal to form a news-web capable of rivaling the behemoth institutions like CNN and Times/Warner.


    And blogdex's slant on blogging is precisely that:


    "Weblogs" are a relatively new method of distributing personal news, essentially an individual's log of activities, news, and thoughts presented in a public manner on the web. As a publishing medium, weblogs are ultimately democratic, often as timely as traditional news sources, and have a potential distribution much greater than print media. One problem with these personal information sources is the inability to find an audience. Blogdex is a system built to harness the power of personal news, amalgamating and organizing personal news content into one navigable source, moving democratic media to the masses.


    Revolution?  New art form?  The ressurrection of community? A new cult of celebrity?  Weblogs have been credited/accused of all such and more.


    Here's a book I'm waitng to read:


    We've Got Blog: How Weblogs are Changing Our Culture
    by Editors of Perseus Publishing (Introduction), Rebecca Blood (Introduction)


    Instantaneous and raw, unedited and uncensored, Weblogs are self-publishing at its best and its worst--occasionally brilliant but often pretentious, sometimes shocking but always fascinating. We've Got Blog is the first book to explore this phenomenon, which has been quickly rising from obscure Webpages to national attention in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Weblogs are free, searchable journals of opinions and links updated daily by an individual or a group and they have become some of the hottest Websites. We've Got Blog has pulled together some of the best writing explaining their history, the mavericks who created them, and how they are changing the way we use the Internet.


    My question, damn it, is that if this is such a hot topic, why don't Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com have this item already pre-released as e-Book instead of touting its release as June 2002?  e-Book--what's that?  Good question!  I've been playing with a few e-Book formats lately, examining the business model, and will have a few things to say about it all soon.  Like noon 

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