There is currently 37.3 million blogs (Technorati) out there. The quality of them differs. I am wondering, can this be even called a blog? Or this? Or even this?
These link-gathering “blogs” are not very far away from this.
Which makes me wonder…why do people do that? Link gathering, posting them without any commentary or opinion (like Jin who writes an opinion and then gives future reading material) on daily basis? Is there a point? Do they honestly think they can beat Google at sorting out the trash of the universe?
It`s the same thing with blog directories, where you have millions of sites gathered into hundered-thousands of directories. So what…now we need a directory of directories?
My 2 cents – Instead of posting endless quantities of links, try writing a critical piece, backing it up with references. This way, you contribute something meaningful to the WWW and at the same time you create something new. Which is what the web is all about, right?
I think even posting nothing but a few links every day can be valuable for the right audience. Whether it can be called a blog or not simply depends on how you wish to define what a blog is (and that’s not really something I wish to argue about).
For example, if I happened to find a blog that posts a few links a day about some subject that I’m interested in, I’d probably be glad to read it in the hope of finding a link to something interesting that I might overlook otherwise. Or if the blog provides a joke every day, and I find that the jokes offered there generally suit my sense of humour, I might become a regular reader of that blog as well. And since there are many readers out there, a blog may well end up being appreciated by *someone* (even though perhaps not by huge masses of people). If the author is content with that, why should you or me complain?
Or, to quote the introduction of “The 120 Days of Sodom”: “and that, reader, is all we ask of you; if we have not said everything, analyzed everything, tax us not with partiality, for you cannot expect us to have guessed what suits you best. Rather, it is up to you to take what you please and leave the rest alone, another reader will do the same, and little by little, everyone will find himself satisfied.”
But does it take longer to find a blog with useful links or to google those links yourself? Since nobody is linking these “link-blogs”, they are not getting a good google rating which makes them useless if you want to find them. On the other hand, pages that are getting linked from such blogs get a higher rating, thus making them easier for you to find them.
Jokes-blogs are useless since there`s a limited amount of jokes that circle the globe. Jokes-blogs are fine if there are few of them and are (again) useless if there`s tens of them, all pushing the same jokes in different order.
The main question remains – the point of such blogs. They are only encouraging passive participants of the web. People who bookmark five pages and then surf their turf. And nothing more.
The main question remains – the point of such blogs.
Well, you may find them pointless, but I guess that their authors probably don’t, and insofar as these blogs have some readers, I guess these readers probably don’t find them pointless either. I personally think that’s quite enough — I don’t think you have provided enough arguments why these people should care about your opinion (that their blogs are pointless).
But does it take longer to find a blog with useful links or to google those links yourself?
I would assume that, sooner or later, a reader interested in some subject will accumulate his own favourite set of blogs that post links on that subject. He will then have these blogs in his bookmarks, or read them via an aggregator, or something of that sort; and from then on, these blogs will provide him with a few links from his area of interest every day. Surely this is not useless? They may point out to him things that he would otherwise overlook.
Jokes-blogs are useless since there`s a limited amount of jokes that circle the globe.
I guess that depends on your criteria of usefulness. If you set these criteria high enough, almost everything becomes useless. I know there are at least two blogs listed on siblogs.com that post little or nothing besides jokes, and I’m always happy to take a look at their jokes. Much of the time there are old ones, but every now and then I find some new joke that gives me a laugh. How could I honestly call them useless if they make me laugh every now and then?
They are only encouraging passive participants of the web.
Why? If a blog provides five interesting links every day, a reader of that blog might go and follow these links, read the five interesting pages pointed to by those links, perhaps engage in some discussions on those sites, etc.
People who bookmark five pages and then surf their turf. And nothing more.
But surely there’s enough room for both passive and active use of the web in the same person. You are active when you wish to be, or when you find it necessary; but in many other cases, you would prefer to have some information delivered to you, and you might appreciate the fact that somebody else with interests similar to yours has done some of the searching and sifting and posted the resulting five good links on their blog so that you yourself don’t have to go through all that effort unless you really want to.
Isn’t that a good thing (presuming links are of interest)?
Like most things, blogs aloso have their negative side, ones you’ve mentioned above. Just deal with it. I think that blogs are based no freedom of speach, so everyone can do with it what ever they want, hoe ever they want.
I think that there is no need to judge others blogs because….non’t find the words…(ker je to njihova zadeva pač in jo oblikujejo kakor pač oni želijo).
Sollution. If you dont like it, just dont watch, read, visit them.
Make your own blog as best as possible and eventually you’ll find blogs that suites you best.
My humble opinion 🙂