Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004 - part 2

Time to re-read all of  this opinion, and get my thoughts in order.

"The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths."

This is probably right. But does that matter? It depends on why you are blogging in the first place. its a personal thing...

"It's almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers."

Um, Ok so you are blogging to get noticed. I understand that many artists and authors do what they do because they feel happy, driven, compelled to do so, and many have not the remotest thoughts about nor wish to to noticed. They produce because they can, and want to, irrespective of who might or might not notice. Personally, I might not consider myself to be an artist, but I am happy to write stuff from time to time, ie get thoughts on paper so to speak. So I do. Hecklers; yup, you get them. I problem with the internet, and especially if you produce anything to do with software or internet technology etc, is that you are likely to attract young juvenile nerdy guys who have low social skills and no interest in relating positively to others. So you will get rude, arrogant (often very badly written, and misspelt) responses. My advice about this: accept it, and ignore it.

"And why bother?"

See above.

"The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter."

Twitter is designed for 160 character max thoughts. In this day and age of sound-bytes I can see its appeal for many. I am on Twitter, and see its use. However a blog is a different animal. Its a vehicle for writing anything from an opinion piece to an essay to an opus magnus. You don't usually go hooning round the beach in an offshore yacht, nor do you usually sail a sailboard offshore (well not very far anyway). Its all about horses for courses.

(This is partly an opinion piece, and partly done to test writing a quick post via linking on an email hyperlink/email client (See "How do I post via email?")