Something is happening here, and you yon't know what it is, do you Mr. Maney?

USA Today's technology columnist Kevin Maney has a column on blogs today. Here's a summary:

  • Blogs are overhyped.
  • But someday, their novelty will wear off.

I swear, that's it. But check for yourself.

These two mundane points are lavishly padded with (1) a witless rewrite of Monty Python's spam skit, where Maney replaces the word "spam" with "blogs" (get it?); (2) some facts obtainable in about three minutes (I suspect) via a Google search on "blogs"; (3) a lot of pointless hot air; and (4) one slightly funny anecdote, which I'll reproduce:

Last winter, I got to judge the New Zealand NetGuide Web Awards for best New Zealand blog of 2004. The winner was Bizgirl, who billed herself as a twentysomething librarian from Wellington. At the awards dinner, Bizgirl turned out to be a middle-aged fat guy.

snicker

Disclaimers: I'm not an expert, and I have no illusions about the cosmic importance of this blog (indistinguishable from zero). But articles like Maney's make me shake my head and mutter "they just don't get it."

Not to sound like some kind of anti-corporate hippie, but blogs don't fit into a worldview where "important" information flow is seen as nearly exclusively hierarchical and top-down, from producer to consumer, from organization to individual, from (say) USA Today to their subscribers. When someone is married to that worldview, as Maney apparently is, the interesting things about blogs just bounce off.

URLs Du Jour (5/25/2005)

  • Proceed immediately to P. J. O'Rourke's modest proposal in the Weekly Standard for putting the hurt on the deficit: tax celebrities.

    America's media and entertainment industry has a gross (as it were) revenue of $316.8 billion a year. If we subtract the income derived from worthy journalism and the publishing of serious books, that leaves $316.8 billion. Surely this money can be put to a more socially useful purpose than reportage on the going forth and multiplying of Britney Spears.

    Also notable for using the word "Stakhanovite."

  • I want a treadmill desk! But is there a model that includes a grindstone for your nose? (Via JustOneMinute.)
  • And Lileks is always great, but I get to correct something in today's Bleat. The recently-departed Thurl Ravenscroft was the voice of Kirby (the vacuum cleaner) in The Brave Little Toaster; the Air Conditioner was voiced by Phil Hartman.


Last Modified 2012-10-26 1:10 PM EDT