What’s a “blog”?
The word is a contraction of “Web log.” Blogs are Web sites run by individuals (or, occasionally, by groups of individuals), combining the features of soapbox commentary, gossip, and news about specific subjects. Blogs take many forms, but what they have in common is that they’re chatty, frequently updated, laced with links to other sites, and strongly flavored by the bloggers’ own comments and perspectives. More than 500,000 blogs have been created so far, on topics ranging from technology to religion, politics to sports, NASCAR to knitting. Until recently, bloggers were people who pre-surfed the Web for the rest of us and recommended other sites. Blogs were fun or useful, but rarely controversial or newsworthy.
When did that change?
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Sept. 11, 2001. “The blog seemed almost designed for this moment,” says Andrew Sullivan, one of the most widely read bloggers (Andrewsullivan.com). Traditional media, including the Web sites of print newspapers and magazines, were too slow and cautious to satisfy the urgent emotional needs of their readers. Television offered live images and instant information, but precious little context or community. Blogs responded to the news in a personal way, and let readers share their own thoughts and stories. Soon the few bloggers who already focused on current events were writing almost exclusively about terrorism. They were joined by hundreds of newcomers, suddenly driven by the need to create media, not just consume it. For many readers, these “war blogs” (the name stuck even as they moved on to other subjects) became vital resources for information and analysis that was more emotional, personal, and energetic than traditional journalism.
Bloggers aren’t journalists?
Some are, but many aren’t. Some of the most well-known bloggers also write for mainstream publications, including Sullivan (the former editor of The New Republic), Mickey Kaus, Virginia Postrel, and Josh Marshall. But perhaps the most influential war blog, Instapundit.com, is written by a law professor. Others are the work of computer programmers, photographers, and countless other media amateurs, many with a shaky grasp of spelling, much less journalism. And virtually all blogs, even when the blogger is a professional writer, are looser than traditional news or opinion columns, more colloquial, more self-referential, less hung up on facts. Without editors or space constraints, bloggers write frequently and at great length, whether or not they have anything new to say. “I like that [‘blog’] is roughly onomatopoeic of vomiting,” says blogger Peter Merholz, who coined the term in 1999. “These sites tend to be a kind of information upchucking.”
How did blogging begin?
The basic format has been around at least since 1994. The first site to identify itself as a “Web log” was Robotwisdom.com, created in 1997. But today’s blogs did not spring from a single common ancestor; they evolved from such earlier species as personal home pages and online journals. The most obvious progenitor of the war blog is Drudgereport.com. Though Matt Drudge reveals too little of himself to count as a blogger, he paved the way for quasi-journalism that refuses to adhere to the rules and that prizes speed and attitude above all. Blogging’s big breakthrough came in August 1999, when pioneer blogger Evan Williams and some partners created “Blogger”—free software that made running a blog almost as easy as sending e-mail. The number of blogs exploded. Now high schoolers, housewives, and even busy celebrities such as Moby and William Shatner have blogs.
Does anyone read them?
Most bloggers are content if their observations on some arcane interest are seen by even a handful of like-minded people. “In the future,” observed journalist David Weinberger, “everyone will be famous to 15 people.” Maybe 10,000 blogs have readers that number in the four digits. The biggest war blogs, such as Andrewsullivan.com and Instapundit.com, claim 150,000 to 250,000 visitors per month—a readership larger than most political print magazines. But because all blogs swap ideas, material, and links with other blogs—often to tedious or humorous extremes—each one has an exponential influence beyond its own readership. “One thousand bloggers,” says journalist Henry Copeland, “generate more communication value than 100,000 readers.”
Isn’t that an exaggeration?
Just ask Trent Lott. The senator’s comments about Strom Thurmond would probably not have exploded into a scandal if it hadn’t been for this web of bloggers. One of the first to make a big deal about Lott’s remarks was Josh Marshall (Talkingpointsmemo.com), a liberal who found them outrageous. Though Lott’s comments were all but ignored in the mainstream media—something Marshall pointed out repeatedly—other bloggers learned about them from Marshall and weighed in, prompting postings from still more bloggers, in a runaway snowball effect. Soon, newspapers and television were playing catch-up.
Are most blogs liberal?
Actually, blogging seems to appeal most to conservatives and libertarians. They say the Web—like talk radio—lets them do an end run around the mainstream press. Many blogs, in fact, devote a lot of time to critiquing the media. Before Lott, bloggers’ proudest victories were forcing The New York Times to run corrections of stories about Henry Kissinger and global warming. The rally cry of these war bloggers, coined by blogger Ken Layne, has become “We can fact-check your ass!”
What is the future of blogging?
Pioneer blogger Dave Winer (Scripting.com) says that by 2007, more people will get their information from blogs than from the Web site of The New York Times. In a recent public challenge, Winer bet Martin Nisenholtz, an editor at the Times, that a Google search of the most widely read news stories five years hence will prove him right. At stake: $2,000, and the future of the media. Winer argues that Big Publishing dumbs down and glosses over stories for mass consumption, driving people to edgy alternatives. No one thinks blogs will put the Times or ABC News out of business, but that’s not the point. “The threat to Big Media is not to its pocketbook,” says Instapundit.com’s Glenn Reynolds, “but to its self-importance.”
How to speak blog
Samizdata.net
blogosphere—the world of blogs; blogs as a communityblogistan—the community of war blogsblogorrhea—excessive output on a blogblogrolling—trading links with other blogsfisk—to deconstruct an article point by point in a highly critical manner; from left-wing journalist Robert Fisk, a frequent target of such treatment by bloggerskitty blog—any mundane personal journal blog; based on the habit of some bloggers to write about their catslink whore—a blogger who will do anything for links from other bloggerstroll—to post an outrageous comment for the sole purpose of generating an angry response
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