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July 25, 2003
All points alert!
The mystical thief of fun and enjoyment is stealing things. First we have Jivha who tempted fate by saying rude things about air hostesses just prior to going on holidays. I sure hope he wasn't flying :-)
Next victim seems to be Glenn who seems to be having a mid-life crisis (or is that mid-blog crisis?). Instead of coddling his readers to get more links as he threatened the other day he has decided to frighten them with stories about his weight and then intimidate them by asking why they read his (and I quote) "bullsh*t".
Well that sort of feeds into the post I have been thinking about for a few days about links. Glenn went through some angst about having link categories and putting people in categories and stuff and that is sort of related to the question of why people read this stuff.
Why do I read blogs? mainly because they are more entertaining that the newspaper. Once upon a time I would read one of the "real" newspapers every day. Then I switched to skimming them online. Then it reached the point where it wasn't worth the effort. So I started reading select sites (like AppleTurns, Slashdot, etc). Then I discovered NetNewsWire (best thing since sliced bread). This aggregated all my feeds into one readable collection (except for slashdot who are complete morons when it comes to dealing with RSS feeds - rant to follow some other time). It also introduced blogs.
Blogs are cool. There are literally millions of them and most of them, as Glenn so aptly put it, are full of sh*t. BUT (and it is a big but, bigger even than my butt) there are some out there that ring a bell. Well not literally. Something about them appeals to you. Maybe they use the same wierd computer you do. Maybe they read books by the same author (none of my readers appear to be Pratchett fans but I live in hope). Maybe they have the same life-angst that you face. Maybe they work in jobs that suck for bosses that would make great cannon-fodder and you can feel a spark of sympathy. Maybe you disagree with everything they say but the way they say it inspires you. Maybe they are giving you a glimpse into an alternate reality.
OK with the goofing off. Why do I still read Glenn? When I first came across his blog (can't remember where), it was the title that attracted me. I was thinking along the lines of "what would people think if I intoduced myself with: hi, i'm fat" and then thinking but they know that, they can see me. So why would Glenn use that phrase and then I got thinking about some book I read back in high school (a very long time ago) called 'Black Like Me' and I remember some of the extra reading material had this story about this chick (in the states) who had a job interview over the phone and her credentials were good and the company paid her to move someplace else and then she turned up at the job and they fired her because she was "of coloured extraction". She then spent the next 7 or 8 years being defensive and would always say on the phone, "Hi. My name is blah and I'm Black". Anyway so the title got my attention. Then I started to read. Not all the items appeal to me. I could care less about the porn blog. I could care less about baseball (that is a foreign to me as cricket would be to the average American). But other things did arouse my interest. Glenn's views on racism, work, cross-cultural relationships are all things that I wanted to read more about. If anything, the downside to a blog is that it is a one-way converstaion. Glenn can tell use what he likes but we can't really respond in an interactive way like we do with other friends. Image: A friend calls up on the phone and talks about the workload and lack of pay. You invite him to meet at lunch or after work at the pub. You sink a few cold ones. VB for him, Carlton Light Ice for me. You talk about jobs and bosses and mates. You make a toast to the worst boss or worst job you can remember. You go out and buy a lottery ticket in the hopes that if it wins you can get another job somewhere else....
What am I talking about, Glenn can drink alcohol - he is getting himself fit again :-)
Anyway, I read Glenn's blog because the material is interesting. Some blogs are one-off. You see them in the RSS feed or follow a link. You read an entry post a comment and then that's it. Some blogs are of longer interest. You stumble across them, read a bit, add them to the NNW watch list and keep an eye on them. You make a few comments. Watch for feedback. Add them to the blog-roundup and maybe link them. Is a link permanent? No. Is it reciprocal? No. I link to sites like AppleTurns (above) but they don't link back and I don't expect them to. Yes I appreciate a link that counts in the blog ecology because that is like a fun game to play but that link can be anywhere. The category doesn't matter. The placement doesn't matter. If the blog ecology counts it, that is fine by me.
Now on my page (lets put the theory to the test) I have divided up my links. I have blogs that I read regularly (some have agreed to let me publish an rss feed) - Must Read Blogs. I have blogs that I enjoyed and I check them again about once a week - Other Favourites. I have a special category for Netwon stuff because I read my blog with the Newton (and post items) and it is convienient to keep the links there to sort of promote the Newton platform. Finally I was very flattered to be asked to participate in a multi-national bloging exercise and I list all of the contributors to that blog as a way of helping to support the blog.
Caveat Emptor - Except in this case it should be reader beware! What appeals to me may not appeal to you. All I can do is point out things that interest me. If you enjoy them, then all the better. If not, find something else. There are some well written, even erudite, blogs out there that leave me cold. Lots of sites are heavily political in the US sense which is pointless from my perspective. Some blogs are just hateful rants or swear words. One blog has very recently been dropped from my watch list because the sniping and crudity just got too much (and although the blog had appeared in roundup it was not linked yet).
Posted by Ozguru at July 25, 2003 06:07 PM
Comments
Posted by: glenn at July 25, 2003 06:07 PM
