I was sitting around with a bunch of friends the other evening and the conversation drifted around to blogs. The general consensus was that reading blogs was a waste of time. What surprised me was that most of the people there were in the interactive media business. I shouldn’t have been surprised because it is a conversation I have heard many times before from similar people. But it is certainly a bit of a puzzle.
Now it is certainly true that out of the millions of blogs out there any one of us will only find a tiny handful that interest us enough to visit regularly. But the same is true of any other media stuff – there are millions of books I wouldn’t want to read, thousands of films and god only knows how many TV programmes and videos.
But it is also true that I have found ideas, facts and stimulating perspectives in blogs that I haven’t found else where in other media. I also notice that many of my favourites are not by people who post everyday – which seems to be the recipe for getting on the A list – but people only post when they have something interesting to say or have found something interesting they want to draw our attention to.
Until the end of 2006 one of the best examples of what I’m talking about was Billmon – a voice of sanity, who wrote about US politics and the war in Iraq, with a clarity, insight and bitter humour that was good for my mental health. Sadly, he burnt out, got a life or just gave up in despair. What ever the reason I still miss him.
(If you want to check out what I mean there is a collection of some of his writing here or you can download an archive here)