Some interesting discussion, over on Marginal Revolution about the future of Blogging. Apparently the webmaster over there, Tyler Cowen, had Dinner with Glenn Renolds, the guy who runs INSTAPUNDIT. They
got into a discussion about the future of Blogging.
This is of interest, because of something Glenn reportedly remarked, and the Tyler reported:
“Blogs that offer too much of the author, and the author alone, are vulnerable to other blogs that cream-skim them, and other blogs, thereby offering the superior product. The question is not who can write the best stuff, but who can collect the best stuff, and comment on it most effectively.”
There’s a lot of discussion back and forth on this point. But one point, one link that many seem to be missing; Such skimming and commentary is exactly what makes Matt Drudge such a success in what he does. So this is not new in the blogging world… nor, as much of a success as Drudge has been, frankly, did it even start there. Such skimming and commentary didn’t start even on the web, but in radio talk shows, which pre-date blogs and pre-date the web, as well.
Come to think on it, if you want to go back further, consider the misinformation incidents we’ve seen in the past few years, in the mainstream press. What those incidents did is to expose the skimmers in the mainstream press. they’re all reading each other, instead of doing the legwork, which is exactly why operations like the NYT are so dangerous. They print something be it good info or bad, and everyone jumps on it. Think you that Jayson Blair stands alone in his ‘cirme’?
Now, I’m not immune to this; I tend to skim though a few thousand sources a day and write about what I see, and I often will link to the stories I write about. (Where would I be getting all this information, after all?) That kind of thing is what this Blog, and this website, has always been about; I simply write about what I see,a nd comment on it. Such could be called a service, if you consider that I’m filtering out a good deal of the noise level. That’s why you’re reading this today; you find some value in it. That some of me comes through in the bargain, I suppose could be considered good or bad. I’d like to think it was good, since without some level of personality, what the heck would you be doing here? Nothing to stand out in the crowd…
Is this kind of skimming, the future then, of Blogging? I don’t know. But it certainly is in it’s recent past, and in the past of the older mediums, as well. This stuff’s been here for decades. So, my advise to other bloggers on all of this: Quit the breast-beating and get on with it.
