Blogs: Fount of life? Or secret Nazi death plot?

[Xepher]

But seriously, what's your opinion on the trend we're (sadly) calling "blogs"? I've been against the idea for years now, mostly for two reasons. 1. The word itself sounds like some gastrointestinal disorder, and 2. Because of the stereotypical "blogorehea" you find with myspace and other popular blogs. However, in the past few months, I've been finding more and more sites I like that are essentially blogs. Many of them are over at www.scienceblogs.com and posit extremely literate and interesting ideas and topics. They are ushering in what, in a way, I always pictured the internet as being best at... an open forum for the rational discussion of ideas amongst people from all walks of life and geographical locales. As such, I love that sort of thing. I think I still hate the word "blog" though.

What do you think about the format of blogs for websites, as opposed to more traditional, apersonal sites?

[phantasus]

well , i actualy like blogs. also, i have one!
its not that i like all blogs, but some of them are interesting and show peoples way of seeing things.

what i dont like are blogs that are mainly of this is me and my friends and we went and have fun. but i guess these are posted so the friends see themselves on the internet, so it is ok, it is just not made for us to see or read, i mean, why would i care?
but im sure that if a close friend writed a blog, i would read it. even if no one else cares.

[griever]

Some blogs are really nice and I read them from time to time.  However, a lot of people use blogs rather than take the few minutes needed to learn HTML.  It's fast and easy and I think for them, it's the new WYSIWYG editor.  Same with forums and wikis, IMHO.

[fesworks]

I used to have a blog... to basically get my comic new posts on my page and then hoep to get people to leave comments... y'know, reader interaction... well it was a pain in the ass and everyone lurks. I ditched it about the time I got a Xepher account... Then I used to copy my site news posts to a thread in my Message board... then I stopped that, because it was a pain in the ass too.

But I don;t have a regular blog because I'm nothing special to really have a blog... so I don;t

[Gwyn]

Well the word = meh. The whole idea of writing down things on a daily basis is cool though. I can't wait until they start calling it "iBlog"

[fesworks]

Yea, I thought "blog" was stupid too. I mean, People always posted stuff online.. but it was never called "blog" until there were sites that archived it.

[Munerift]

I just call mine 'my livejournal.'
Works for me.

...we of the modern masses need somewhere to bitch and whine, our friends never have the time to listen anymore.

[reinder]

Blogs aren't really a trend anymore. Or at least, they're not the latest thing, not by a long shot. I do think the number of blogs will continue to grow.

I use mine to vent, point, ponder and occasionally to replace my long-term memory, which is all filled up with rock family trees and can't really take on any new data anymore.

[Databits]

In my honest opinion, I think Blogs are one of the worst pieces of crap to ever hit the internet. I hate them with a dire burning passion, which is why we have them blocked, 100% and completely at my place. My sister comes over and "wants to check her MySpace" and I just go "sorry, I blocked that piece of trash, you can't". People say to me, "I have a website" then point me to their MySpace, Live Journal, or Xanga account... that irritates me to no end.

All they usually are is some place for people to post things about their life that most people don't really give a shit about. More importantly, they like some other things, destroy the relevance of a search engine. When I search for a "LARP" I don't want to pull up half a dozen blogs of some loser who has no friends and feels the need to post about their miserable life on the internet. They are, in essence, a deformation of the idea of a forum and need to die die die!

MySpace, Xanga, Live Journal... all need burn horribly. I don't care what people say, they ARE "blogs". They are the modern day yahoo webpage and geocities of the internet.

Want a website? Learn HTML get a host.
Can't do that? Hire someone.
Can't afford it? Then keep your shit off the net, it's full enough with trash as it is. Use email to "tell your friends".

*waits for people to flame him*

[Xepher]

Thinking about it more, I feel I've figured out where my distaste lies, but also what I do like. There's this tendency for people to try and "blog" every day, or even multiple times each day, even if they don't really have anything to say. It's the mental equivalent of whistling... not really useful, and often quite annoying to anyone else. I've never been a fan of quantity over quality, and blogs often become a shortcut for people, letting them spew their half-formed thoughts to the masses.

It used to be that, were you to want to share your thoughts, you spent a lot of time writing well formed essays or articles, and people who responded did likewise, quoting both you and other sources to enhance their argument. As "publication" no longer became necessary, the standards dropped, but even the time it takes to make a proper web page at least offered an author some chance for reflection and review of his thoughts. Now, between forums, instant messages, and blogs, we spend less and less time criticizing and improving our own ideas, relying on the knee-jerk reactions/comments of others to refine it for us. On top of that, it gives one no time to cool off from a possibly heated argument. We just write about things immediately, even if they won't seem important 5 hours (or 5 minutes) later. Blogs just seem like the latest step towards the ADD society.

Of course, these are all grievous over-generalizations. Many self-named "blogs" do have well thought out, article/essay quality writing. Likewise, garnering immediate feedback from others lends a certain honesty to the whole affair. I think my concern is not so much that blogs are becoming mainstream, but rather that they'll start to replace traditional, multiple-draft methods of writing. It doesn't bother me in the slightest to find programmers keeping daily blog posts about what bugs they're working on, or artists talking about their current project... watching a CNN newscast spend the better part of an hour debating the political opinions in the "blogosphere" (seriously, can we shoot the guy who thought up that word?) makes me want to hurl a brick through my television.

[griever]

I hate MySpace.  I refuse to visit MySpace profiles anymore because they're horrible, with huge images and music playing automatically.  Half the time, the "friends" are just sycophants who want return comments.  It's also the only website that has made any brower I use freeze up and die.

@Databits: I prefer LiveJournal because I can keep my drivel friends only and out of the general search engines, although at this point, they're mostly open, because my parents want to read about all the cheap sushi I'm eating.  Multiple times a day is annoying, unless it's two separate major events, IMHO.

Email...I don't want to become one of those people who joins the category of the forwarders - every day, spamming up people's inboxes because I think they might be interested in my life.  You filter the list after they tell you they don't want to be added, but then get yelled at 3 months later because you didn't let them know something major happened.  With the amount of relatives I'd have to email, it's way too much trouble.  They all have the address - they can read it if they want.

Not flamey, I hope.

[Databits]

Maybe so, but at least the person has the option to filter the message. In terms of a Google search, I shouldn't need to type in search conditions to filter out a blog.. they should be just ignored by bots. Most especially things like the big known ones. I just wish that search bots had hard coded "I will ignore you" for things like xanga, live journal, and myspace things. Or at the very least make it an option for people who want to find relevant non-trash information when looking for something for any decent topic, not some pre-teen's meaningless non-authoritative opinion on the world and their problems.

That said, things like that and those damn pages that are nothing more than a giant page of links full of stuff like what you search for, are making it harder and harder to find REAL information that's worth a shit on the internet anymore. I guarantee that almost anything you look up you'll end up with blogs and trash within the first 10 results. Which is totally crap.

[griever]

I've noticed a lot of people switching over to blogs as content management systems.  In some cases, it works, but in many cases, it isn't the right format.  I think Wordpress is catching onto this...one of the plug-ins now features is a static front page, so you can make your blog appear more web sitey.

When I search for stuff on Google though, I normally don't get more than one blog on the first page, unless I add "blog" or "review" to the search phrase (and this is rare, because I hate having things spoiled for me in "reviews").  My guess is that for the things I'm interested in, most people don't make websites or blogs, or make websites instead of blogs.  I very rarely see a LJ or Xanga link in any of the first 2 or 3 pages - if a blog does come up, it's usually a Wordpress one.  I do see a lot of forum sites though, which irks me probably as much as you are irked by blogs.

[Desh]

I manage to escape most of the "blogosphere" (I'm so anti-social that no one wants me to read their blog) though I can see how it's all annoying.  The world's getting faster and smaller, so you just don't have the time to use thought or that crazy thing called grammar.

Normal essays and structure will never die on the web, though it could be drown out by the trash.  Random fads and their accompanying blogs are growing in number.  The trouble is the internet is swapping (or has already swapped) over from an information network to yet another form of entertainment.

Now that I think about it, when I search for information, my first source is wikipedia (don't scold me, I use the reference links, not the user added material talking about cows on the moon )

Sadly, so many people love the stuff like blogs that search engines'll never create good filters.  I actually did do a random google search on the word "bacon."  What do you know, the fifth link is to a blog search (And the first link is to wikipedia).

[Databits]

There's quite a distinct difference from a Blog vs a Wiki.