June 12, 2003
All around me, the greats of the blogging world are discoursing about how and why people use their blogs. I know these are the “greats” because they are the ones invited (and paid) to present papers at world-wide conferences; they are the ones who make their living in close association with the World Wide Web; they are the ones lots of us read even though they don’t read us.
(As an aside, Betsy Devine took the time to take an honest look at the sources of the hits she gets. I know what she means. Ever since, ages ago, I posted a definitely untitillating piece about the death of porn star Linda Lovelace, I continue to come up on searches for information about her.)
So, who has the time and interest to read weblogs that are not among the greats? A June 11 post by one of the greats, Rebecca Blood, got me thinking. In her much longer piece, she writes:
The important point for bloggers is, if you don't link to it, it is invisible from your corner of the Web. A group of bloggers that uniformly dismisses or ignores certain points of view, effectively removes them from the discourse. More importantly, the sense of pervasive shared opinion created by that clustering creates a false sense of majority. If you are interested in uncovering the truth, you won't find it this way. If you are interested in affecting public discourse, watch out--you may gain ascendency in certain circles, but you're just as likely to marginalize yourself instead….
So, is it important for the knitting weblogs to link to the crochet weblogs? Probably not. For now, the test I've devised is this: is what you're talking about important? The more important you think it is, the more important it probably is to consider the opinions of those who have thought about the same subject and drawn a different conclusion.
And so, does it follow from that, that if I’m not one of the greats and I don’t want to be marginalized among a small circle of echo-bloggers, I not only need to search out other webloggers who have posted about Elmo or eerie graveyard photos, but also to leave comments on their posts so that they can then discover and read me?
See, that’s the dilemma for dilettante bloggers like me, who write our personal views on war, peace, family, friends, frustrations, and frivolities: we don’t offer a focus, a perspective that’s deep enough on any one topic to earn us any notability or even notoriety. As a result, it’s very easy to slip onto the rim, out there in the margin.
I guess how disturbing that is depends on why we blog in the first place and how much thought, time, and tenacity we have available to invest in the process. Everything in life is a trade-off. (I’m saying that a lot these days, aren’t I?)
Meanwhile, I just interrupted writing this post because a photographer came over to take my photo for the Chicago Tribune article on women and weblogging. Boy, I wish I could drop those 15 pounds I’ve put on in the past year! I look at what he has on the digital screen of the camera and cringe. Oh well, maybe it’s time to let go of Vanity, since it's obvious I've traded it off for chocolate and cheesecake anyway.
And I was wrong about the publication date of the Trib article. It won't be out until the middle of July. Just ignore the photos!
Comments now powered by HaloScan. Click here to read this entry's comments (if any), or to post one of your own.
Old Comments (1)
Kate S. on 15 Jun 2003
I truly hope you are now on your way to vacation! I just now read this and clicked on most of the links, bookmarking some of interest to be purused later (like Rebecca Blood's speech.) All of this reminds me of an email I sent you, wishing you a wider-based readership.
I did not know there was so much debate on what is a blog, and how many bins there are for us to be dropped into, by category.
If this is a true accounting of the evolution of blogs, then where do we, indeed!, those of us who are a bit eccentric in our posts...where do we belong? And how important is this jockeying for position on the rating's scalers' sites to our success?
*raspberry* I can't get around any of that.
We, who sing in clarity, from the back row of the chorus, will be heard by those inherently possessing the same aural capacity of dogs' ears.
*cueing up "Awoooo! Werewolves of London!"*