An interesting article on blogging in the MIT Technology Review (if you can see past all the animated ads, that is).
Bloggers are turning the hunting and gathering, sampling and critiquing the rest of us do online into an extreme sport. We surf the Web; these guys snowboard it. Bloggers are the minutemen of the digital revolution.
Whoa. Extreme sport. Moi? Yeesh!
Yet something more important may be afoot. At a time when many dot coms have failed, blogging is on the rise. We’re in a lull between waves of commercialization in digital media, and bloggers are seizing the moment, potentially increasing cultural diversity and lowering barriers to cultural participation.
I don’t know that I agree with the author’s suggestion — that blogging represents the common man’s opinion and is as critical in distributing ideas and opinions as many other historical movements — but it’s an interesting thesis, and worth further examination. Until the bubble bursts, that is.
(Via Boing Boing)