blansky said:
Yes an no -- like many writers originating from the non-blog media, they tend to see blogs merely as smaller versions of mainstream media outlets -- so their acceptable range of subjects conform entirely to the World As Seen By CNN mentality. Foreign-policy blogs, economics blogs.... which are by far just a sliver of the blog ecology. While instapundit and the like may drag-in a lot of hits, for the most part they tend to just ape what's alredy in the media. In fact the election was a vivid illustration of what happens when media covers blog sites as news, even as the bloggers themselves are just repeating random snips of what they heard a few minutes ago on Fox News. Talk about public navel-gazing.
The bulk of blogs are owned by 13-year-old girls who abandon the blog after a month or two. I'm not kidding, something like 70% of all blog addresses are abandoned and originally owned by teen girls. Of active blogs, there are some on politcal issues, with low readership -- one of my neighbors around the corner has a ranting one that goes on every few days about those damned democrats and harry potter and jesus, but as far as I can tell the only readers are his children and his drinking buddies from the VFW. There are a fair number of photobloggers who just noodle around, though they get themselves constrained by the "i have to post a new pic every day" mentality that requires them to use digi's and post a lot of pictures of their feet, their cats sleeping, sunsets and pretty much the entire cliche catalog.
Still, it makes for a big bookstore, and there are a few worthwhile ones. I think.
