Interesting People list = the prototypical blog?

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

So how would Ipers react to :

1 only blog

2 blog and email

3 only email (like now)

Dave


------ Forwarded Message
From: Rich Wiggins <wiggins () msu edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 06:45:04 -0500 (EST)
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Interesting People list = the prototypical blog?


Dave,

Weblogs are in the news lately, with Google acquiring Pyra and with
lots of rumination about what it all means.  A year ago I was trying
to explain what blogs were all about to a group of folks who weren't
familiar with them.  The elements that came to mind were:

-- It's one person's voice -- one author's journal of original ideas,
brief commentary on news, technology, law, politics, whatever.

-- That one author also forwards a lot of commentary and news from
other sources, whether mainstream media, folks he respects, or some
random writer bringing a unique thought on a subject.

-- It's a soapbox or printing press for anyone who wants to devote
the time and energy.  Some authors spend hours a day preparing
their postings.  Costs are virtually nil, thanks to the Net.

-- The successful ones are read daily by thousands of folks, many
influential, including leading reporters in the mainstream media.
Often you read articles in The New York Times or the Wall Street
Journal where the story idea clearly came from a blog.

-- Postings are frequent -- maybe daily, maybe more. with an
archive of past issues.

It occurs to me that your Interesting People list is the prototypical
blog.  It meets all of these characteristics.  Of course, it predates
the Web, and it isn't presented as a Weblog. You stick with the original
push technology -- e-mail -- for your daily feeds (though past issues
are archived on the Web and hence findable in Google).

The technology of blogging is fundamentally pretty simple. You've
got tools that free the author from thinking about layout or HTML
codes while posting his or her daily bleat.  You've got RSS to
syndicate the content.  And Google to search across 'em all
and find out what the buzz is.

But if you set aside technology and presentation, I claim if you want
to understand the blog phenomenon, you have to start with the IP
mailing list.

/rich


------ End of Forwarded Message

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