The Raven

Monday, August 19, 2002

The Sik and the Dead
If you're like me, you've been reading a lot about blogging - what it is, what it means, where it's going. Because the term resists a concise definition and the target is in constant motion, most pundits either get close to pinning down what blogging is or they miss the mark entirely. The whole issue of "warblogs," for example, seems to be an attractive subject for journalists whereas bloggers recognize it as a digital red herring. But that's not what draws my interest: I'd like to know what a blog is supposed to be. In particular, I'd like to know how a good blog differs from a poor one; how excellence is attained. What I'm reading about blogging helps me gauge the extent to which my efforts are likely to be meaningful in a wider context beyond "because I say so" (which, interestingly, is the subtitle of the Ipsi Dixit blog).

Commentary on blogging is either outside looking in, or inside looking around. Scott Rosenberg's page cites the current Newsweek coverage for the non-blognoscenti, which considerably updates John Dvorak's remarks about blogging from earlier this year. There are several other links to follow in the Newsweek article, which largely fall into the "um-hm, that's nice" category. For the insider's view, you can pursue both what blogging is and how it should be done. For the first part, Ray Ozzie's view on how weblogs differ from other kinds of discussion forums is must reading, especially for those who have given up on Usenet and BBSs. For the second part - the Tao of Blogging - Dennis Mahoney's How to Write a Better Weblog addresses the key issue of good weblogging: good writing.

How you define good writing is largely a matter of taste, but most Salon readers are likely to be news junkies, politicolics, media hawks, technomavens - unlike vida, who chronicles her daily life on her Breaking Free blog. I really shouldn't be mean to vida, because while her daily observations ranging from what she had for breakfast to who she chatted with on her cell phone whilst riding the omnibus to school are... Well, take a look:

wat is with the weather lately? after wonderful sunny days - all of a sudden it's so cold and windy!! *eeek* i'm in one of those 'talk a lot' moods - maybe coz i'm jsut happy i dno. but if ur free tongiht and i haven't spoken to you in awhile, gimme a call and i'll keep u occupied! hee hee.

This stuff goes on for hundreds of pages. Here's a typical comment, one of 99 garnered by her trenchent monographs:

hey.. just surfing sites late at night, watching.. soccer.. ~_~.. haha.. anyways.. landed on your page so i've decided to sign your guestbook, since there's nothing else for me to do. :P .. you have so many guestbook entries haha.. but anyways, take care now. bye [signed Jaycin]

What could possibly explain this? The Raven thinks that a digital journal, posted to the Web, can be thought of as a validation of a person's thoughts, a process of performance art that imbues meaning to the inscribed afterimages of a prosaic existence. While you might not apply this description to vida's musings, it is difficult to label "True Porn Clerk's Stories" (see Pornographer's Picks) as anything else.

4:53:38 PM