Blogs. Whatever.

Blogging is a trend that inspires varied reactions in many people. From dismissal as an outlet for whiny teenage girls to fevered following of prominent sports journalists, blogs provoke vast arrays of responses in many forms. But at the end of the day, they appear to really serve just one function: a protected space for the publishing of thoughts.

Ms. Carol Green recently gave her thoughts on blogs to an assembled audience at Manzanita Hall: “Blog, Blog, Bloggedy, Blog, Blog, Blog, Bloggerific, Blogtastically Blogalicious.” Mr. Andrew Irvine responded: “Blogarithims, they need Blogzygen to survive.” Green furthered: "Blogalicious: It was so delicious I had to blog about it. 

The fact that blogs have allowed me to publish the above drivel illustrates that Ferguson may have had an element of truth to his words that “blogs are self-perpetuating, parasitic news organisms.” The protected space that blogs offer leads to a true lack of what I call “information control.” That is, when the amount of information that can be released by one individual without oversight of publishers is limited, that leads to a better quality of information selected for release. But the advent of blogs have lead to that limitation vanishing. Now individuals can publish unlimited amounts of unfiltered information, leading to a dilution in the total quality of the information published.

Now to focus more on Ferguson’s words:

Self-Perpetuating…

Blogs are self-perpetuating in the fact that, as I said before, there is no limit on the information published.

            Parasitic

                        It is easy to prey upon other’s work from a blog.

            News

             Some blogs do include news. However, it is usually much easier to get your news from a different source so that you don’t sound like an idiot when the blog is inevitably wrong. 

Image Sources:

http://www.weblogcartoons.com/cartoons/sifting-through-ideas.gif 

http://www.stageoflife.com/Portals/0/Blogging%20Resources/Blogging%20Cartoons/BloggingCartoon5.jpg

http://itsmypulp.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/blog-cartoon.JPG