Comments on: Predictions for blogging

By: Liz Ditz

Liz Ditz — Wed, 08 Sep 2004 10:12:12 +0000

I personally think it is a labelling error to say “predictions on where blogging could go.”

Blogging is just a medium with microscopic barriers to entry. Some blogging is the equivalent of a person with a loudspeaker in a public space: “Listen up! This is what I think!”

The two features that makes blogging unique (in my view) are (1) searchability–the capacity to ask of this enormous repositiory of keystrokes for some particlar set–which is how blogging differs from say both private journals and printed media.

(2) print-based or permanency. This is where it differs from radio or tv.

So “blogging”–the exponential growth? I’ve started 7 and abandoned all but two. But the five live on–while I’m not adding I haven’t dumped them off the server either, and besides they’d probably still exist in the wayback machine or something.

By: Bene Diction

Bene Diction — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 00:21:48 +0000

I don’t disagree there are mendacious bloggers.
Individual intrepretation varies widely in any single event - which makes the job of journalism interesting and blogs even more interesting.
It quite depends on the bloggers agenda, and we don’t have to pretend ‘objectivity’.

Bloggers can question the veracity of media, I suppose the ‘how’ of that is the rub.

Odd, I have reached a high level of weariness with pundit blogs. I have not even attempted to discern why. Blog on!

By: alicia

alicia — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 00:10:14 +0000

my blogging was never about politics, per se - but culture and religion and health care. politics influence these, and my profession is always politically in trouble (in the USA at least) but I have found most of the political blogs to be, frankly, boring. What I have found useful from them is that they bring forth the stories and the back stories that the mainstream media overlook or ignore. An example of that was what really did happen when John Kerry spoke in Steubenville OH (home of extremely Catholic Franciscan University). Given the strong traditionally Democratic nature of that area of the nation (organized labor etc) and the equally strong pro-life nature of the students and professors at Franciscan, I expected there to be a bit of a confrontation - and there was according to local print sources and various bloggers. But the TV and radio coverage (what little there was) seems to have been concentrated on Kerry’s message not on the interactions between Kerry and the townfolk.
Similarly the rapid dissemination of the AP’s ‘error’ reporting that Bush followers had supposedly booed about Mr. Clinton’s heart surgery. Blogs have the capability to call into question the veracity of the traditional news media - but blogs can also be some what mendacious in their coverage and interpretations.

By: Bene Diction

Bene Diction — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 21:18:59 +0000

Yeah, un-educated guesses using prior trends on my part.
I think you make sense:
**some people who now blog will stop doing it in the next 5 years. And there will be others who don’t blog who will start**

LoL. Everything has to fit in slots. We can hope the technology remains accessable, but I left that out because I don’t know if it will. And as for relationships, it is an idealistic hope. Blog on!

By: Richard Hall

Richard Hall — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 17:50:25 +0000

I’m not in any position to make predictions about the future, BD — my judgement of where blogging *is* doesn’t seem to coincide with anyone else’s, so my predictions are unlikely to be accurate!
But I do foresee that some people who now blog will stop doing it in the next 5 years. And there will be others who don’t blog who will start. ;o)