Sunday, November 24, 2002

Blogswallop



Or, what is the smell of one hand blogging?

Enjoy the unintentional comedy stylings of one Jeff Jarvis, failed writer for TV Guide. (Via Talking Points Memo.) This kind of self-congratulatory twaddle makes Babs Striesand sound positively self-effacing.

Blogs bring speed -- amazing speed -- to media. David Gallagher told a hilarious anecdote about finding a story he was reporting for the NY Times blogged even before he wrote it (Glenn Reynolds and Dave Winer both told the world they'd been interviewed).

So blogs are the place for breaking news. If, by news, you mean articles about self-obsessed webbloggers who can't shut up about themselves. I guess when you need the latest on bloggers blowing themselves, time is of the essence!

Meanwhile, I was talking with Nick Denton on IM and told him that Glenn Reynolds had quoted him a few times and plugged Nick's Gizmodo in his keynote. Nick said he knew; he'd already read it on some of the blogs reporting on the speech, live. He told me to tell Glenn that he'd sold $5841.11 worth of Amazon gadgets on Gizmodo already this month. I turn my laptop to Glenn and show it to him and then mention that in my talk. It gets blogged again. Speed. That is a key value blogs bring.

Squirt, squirt, squirt.

Glenn says that weblogs and their audiences are good at corrections. "If something has been on a weblog for a long time and has not been corrected it probably is true."

Except when the weblogger just ignores the truth (ala Instapundit), or changes what he said without comment (ala Sully) or just lies. The fact that something has been on a weblog for a long time and has not been corrected means nothing.

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