g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


On My Blog Menu:

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James Lileks
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As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
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Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
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Corsair the Rational Pirate
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Friday, April 19, 2002
13:26 - Haw!
http://joyoftech.com/joyoftech/index.html

(top) link

Nice commentary on the times. Very well done.

You know, this is the tone that comic strips about the Internet took back in about 1995, when only a few people in the audience would have any idea what it they were talking about-- but those people were reduced to hysterics. For Doonesbury to mention "hard drives" or for Dilbert to dig at propeller-beanie-wearing bearded UNIX gurus was the height of hilarity. When User Friendly debuted, we thought the Apocalypse was nigh; when The Simpsons tackled topics like Homer starting up an Internet company that didn't really seem to do anything (but got bought out by Bill Gates anyway), or even the stumbling earlier attempts (that felt like those clueless 1995 comics all over again) where Snake steals money from people's bank accounts by putting floppy disks into their iMacs and then running away saying "Yoink dot adios, backslash losers!"-- it was clear that the mainstream had its new lexicon.

Now we've got blogs to make fun of, and most of the world doesn't know what they are. Prior to about December 15, I didn't know what they were either-- I'd never heard the term before. But then Lileks mentioned a few blogs that he read regularly, I checked them out-- and within a week I was blogging myself, posting like six times a day. Then at least three friends started blogging within the next two weeks. And now, four months later, the word "blog" is on the verge of reaching the print comics pages of hometown newspapers.

The print and mainstream media have approached blogging like wolves cornering a porcupine. They know that blogs are a potential threat, but they have no idea how to go about addressing that threat-- so some ridicule bloggers, some vilify them, some poke gentle fun, and some few actually run guest columns by bloggers in a gesture of symbiotic brotherhood. The bloggers have yet to really decide how they feel about it, too-- they swarm with great glee around high-profile morons like Ted Rall and Alex Beam, they rally behind Blogland heads of state like Lileks and Reynolds and Sullivan, and they trash the mainstream media probably more than it deserves to be trashed. The balance and symbiosis that will eventually emerge will probably look nothing like what we have today, and everybody knows it. We just can't predict what will end up happening.

So, "Blog" is today about where "Website" was in 1995. Where will it be in 2009? And what will be the new "Blog"?

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© Brian Tiemann