Every day 175,000 new blogs are created, according to this book review from Reason Online. The author, David Harsanyi, is reviewing The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture, by Andrew Keen. Keen thinks that all us bloggers out here are burying any good content on the Internet with drivel. Harsanyi conceded one point: "He’s right that the Internet is littered with inane, vulgar, dimwitted, unedited, and unreadable content, much of it fueling outrageous conspiracy theories, odious partisan debates, mindless celebrity worship, and worse. And then there’s the stuff that’s not even entertaining."
Harsanyi goes on to argue the benefits of bloggers in the new media, blaming the decline in traditional media, like newspapers, on the papers' business practices, not on amateur bloggers, as Keen does.
One area the article doesn't discuss (and doesn't need to) is whether many bloggers are targeting a small audience, as I am trying to do with this blog. I have to think that few people who start blogs believe that strangers the world over have a burning--or even passing--desire to read what they say. That's part of the benefit of "Web 2.0"--that it meets the needs of small groups of people and it can be customized by those people.
But you can find yet another viewpoint on this question here.
No comments:
Post a Comment