Thursday, May 05, 2005

Doc Searls on blogs

What is a blog? The oft-cited Doc Searls shares his thoughts in a PowerPoint from the "Les Blogs" conference in Paris. Or, if you'd like the html version ...

Try slide 17 for the nub of things:
  • Blogs are journals
  • They are not "sites"
  • They are not "content"
  • They are not "media"
  • They are not here to "deliver an experience"
  • They are not an "emergent synchronization mode"
  • There's no argument about "who's a journalist." We all are.
Searls' basic argument is that blogs are individual writings -- speech -- that turn into conversations through the linking ability of the Web. Treat them like content, he says, and we run the risk of censorship.

This is why news media and blogs struggle to find compatibility. We in this business see such things as content. That's fine. Call them online columns, which is what most really are when we produce them.

posted by Doug @ 4:04 PM   1 comments|

1 Comments:

At 5/6/05, 12:05 PM, Blogger Doug said...

Well, yes, but ...
I think his comments have a kernel of truth for why MSM struggle with blogs. They try to force the conversation, forgetting that the essence of the blog is the writer's personality and that the conversation comes from the interlinking. Even in your blog, which even more than mine is probably more on the "content" side, your personality comes through clearly in a way that the traditional media struggle to reach, even when they give staff members blogs, because for traditional media the "voice" is that of the publication much more than the writer.

 

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