blog qotd

Topical blog authors are Dadaists selecting readymades who yet strive to be Bauhaus craftspeople and do occasionally succeed. That is, they strive to create original content and commentary but are also content to spread a found meme that they consider important or interesting

Scott Carter “The role of the author in topical blogs” via grand text auto

---

Comments: blog qotd

'Even blog authors who insisted that their blog was for them alone still analyzed server logs or regularly tested their links for hits in major search engines.'

Ouch, outed!
Posted by Kent at April 23, 2005 04:24 AM

Yes, er... that was Blog QOT year?
or blogger's creed...

And there must be a disease Advertisers could invent here: Stat-itis, Server Log Fatigue? Technorati Cramp?
Posted by boynton at April 23, 2005 12:29 PM

Kent - I haven't done that. re Scott Carter's opinion: it has not been read by MY Twunt of the week (thanks cileo) Daniel Donahoo (se my place) who says we are all sad old losers with no life. (unlike himself in Castlemaine, emailing his pieces to various publications, to earn a living from the big city life he rejects.
Posted by Brownie at April 25, 2005 08:48 AM

I suspect one's sadness would be lessened by such heroic resistance, Brownie. Woe is me.

Blogging, even on a local scale, is too vast to generalise by some cursory flying visits. You only have to look at a few posts at "A Media Dragon" to see the range of meta (and better) discussion about blogs and blogging on offer from within and without.
Scott Carter's paper is but one example of serious analysis, if that's your bag. And that is really about the genre of Topical blogs, with the sub genre, Law blogs. I just swiped a nice quote, out of context, as is my wont, and the wont of the ww web, perhaps.

OTOH, bloggers are quite possibly highly delusional.
As is any voice daring to utter something in the dumb wilderness.

Actually , my innate and chronic sadness and non-influence received unexpected validation, (or is that invalidation?) not through google, as you do, but through meeting other bloggers in RL and discovering that they were all pretty much as you'd expect. Good company, on or offline.
I think most bloggers can manage to balance the e cup of coffee commentary and the real lattes with corporeal friends, in the city or poor old Castlemaine. (Which I know quite well as it happens)
Posted by boynton at April 25, 2005 04:23 PM

I made the remark because I know Castlemaine too, and have watched it devolve into Acland St with gum trees. as with Daylesford, soon the locals/historic occupants won't be able to afford to live there.
"highly delusional.As is any voice daring to utter something in the dumb wilderness." - the fact that it IS uttered and then RESPONDED to, means that it was not uttered into 'dumb wilderness'. Poor Mr Donahoo, possibly surrounded by people all the time, forgot for a moment that there are people who live alone, distanced from metropoli but not stupid, who get the zeitgeist by proxy through blogs. I hardly ever turn on my television set. and now I have to get to Mansfield Park thanks.(and I never thought I would ever actually use that z word back there)
Posted by Brownie at April 26, 2005 07:05 PM

I didn't want to say this at L.P. because most of the talk was 'oh but we DO have lives'. But-

Even if he (Donahoo) is right, and most bloggers are sad loner-folk, what's the problem? Turning off the internet and shutting down your blog doesn't give you friends, and doesn't take you to a cafe to discuss interesting things (as I've learnt). The few friends I have aren't interested in talking to me about things that bloggers and commenters are. And new flesh-friends aren't forthcoming for reasons totally unrelated to the blog.

I guess some people (Donahoo) don't like this new, increasingly powerful voice of all us sad folk, suddenly given volume. People communicate and (attempt to) influence in different ways - not by choice, but by necessity. Brownie because of distance; others because of shyness.
Posted by Kent at April 26, 2005 08:17 PM

Sorry if I unintentionally caused any offence there, Brownie, I was just 'talking to myself' (re "dumb"- anyway) along a stream of consciousness, laced with a bit of irony.
What I was trying to say so badly was that any utterance can seem bold, even perhaps delusional, until the medium/site is accepted as conventional.

Blogging is certainly a great medium for the isolated/shy/curious. Personally I think it's great for associative thinking. Thinking through linking.
As Mark B points out though, it's not an either/or situation. It's a pretty shaky off-line community that has to fear the virtual? As much as I like it, I don't think blogging presents much of a threat.

I agree with you about Castlemaine too.
(One side of the family goes back generations) Don't know if it's quite Acland St yet? Hope not.
Posted by boynton at April 26, 2005 10:05 PM