I happened to stumble upon a review of a book on the Economist about the changing media marketplace entitled An Army of Davids written by Glenn Reynolds, and found the review very intriguing.
His theory:
JOURNALISM is like making beer…. Without formal training and using cheap equipment, almost anyone can do it. The quality may be variable, but the best home-brews are tastier than the stuff you see advertised during the Super Bowl. This is because big brewers, particularly in America, have long aimed to reach the largest market by pushing bland brands that offend no one. The rise of home-brewing, however, has forced them to create “micro-brews” that actually taste of something.
He does go on to say that “many blogs are awful” — and I resent that as he clearly has not read The Diatribe — but, even to that point. True, I’m sure to the mainstream population many blogs are awful — however to the writers and followers of said blogs, they’re still a community.
I can’t speak to my fellow Diatribe columnists, however, I’m not trying to change the world with our little corner of the Internet. I’m merely trying to create a community for our friends and family, where we can joke, share thoughts, and carry-on in a “public” sort of way. It’s a way of communicating that didn’t exist a 10 years ago.
I think back to New Years Eve 2005 (2004-2005), when sitting outside on the front stoop smoking cigars. Jeremul says to us “Can you believe that the Time person of the year is George W. Bush — only second to some group called Boggers [sic]. Who are these Boggers?”
At this point in time, I had no plans to start up a blog, but two months later — the Diatribe was born. I’d say the large majority of the American public still is not part of the “Blogosphere,” and does not read many Blogs. I’m can say with some degree of certainty that the only blog my fellow columnists read is this “rag,” (And Eric Wilbur’s Blog doesn’t count). There’s nothing wrong with that.
There are, though, a number of fantastic sites out there that are no just personal Weblogs. A large number of the blogs that I follow are not personal — they’re about online marketing, Apple, Strange stuff on the Web, Internet Trends, etc. There is a hodgepodge of personal blogs I do read, but they’re people I know.. not some random jerk on the web spouting his mouth off about this and that.
I never quite intended to go off on this sort of tangent when I first saw this article on the Economist, and decided to blog about it. It just happened — and that’s the best thing about this place — you can write about whatever you want, and who the hell cares who reads it — right? Exactly.
