Re: Blogs

From: Rick Bruner <rick_at_bruner.net>
Date: Tue 24 Jun 2003 09:18:23 -0500

"Blog" is short for "web log" -- a popular means of self publishing on the
Internet. While arguably blogs have been around for many years, early
examples of which including Dave Winer's Scripting.com and Matt Drudge's
DrudeReport.com (which notably broke the whole Monica Lewinsky scandal, tho
whether it's exactly a blog or not is a matter of dispute), blogging really
took off after Sept 11th, when everyone felt they had something to say. By
that time, several popular blogging tools were on the market with free or
cheap self-publishing solutions, including Blogger.com and
MoveableType.org, which enabled people to easily (like
send-an-email-easily) self publishing on the web, automatically archive
posts and other features of self-publishing.

Examples of popular blogs include the following (from a white paper draft I
wrote recently):

Gawker.com - Fantastically popular, super-snarky blog about trivial NYC
gossip written with great intelligence by Elizabeth Spiers, profiled of
late in the New York Times, Business Week, Forbes, the Howard Sterne Show
and everywhere in between.

Dashes.com/anil - Intelligent personal commentary on life, technology and
more by Anil Dash, chief of business development at Six Apart, corporate
parent of the popular weblogging tool Moveable Type.

MarketingFix.com - News aggregation and analysis focused on Internet
marketing, a collaboration among several experts in that sector including
(full disclosure) me.

AndrewSullivan.com - conservative commentary by Andrew Sullivan,
accomplished journalist whose long press resume includes having served from
1991 to 1996 as editor of The New Republic.

BoingBoing.net - Terrific collection of off-beat links, focusing largely on
technology and humor by
Cory Doctorow.

BuzzMachine.com - Media observations, weblog trend analysis, conservative
political commentary and more from Jeff Jarvis, president of Advance.net
(parent company to CondeNet and Advance Publishing newspaper sites), former
TV Guide and People Magazine critic.

Dan Gilmore ( http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor ) -
Columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, one of the first working
mainstream journalists to establish a popular weblog, focused largely on
technology trends.

DrudgeReport.com - Political breaking news from Matt Drudge, the man and
site that broke the Monica Lewinsky story. Whether this site is a genuine
"blog" or not is the subject of some debate among blogging purists (it does
not typically feature any commentary, only links), but it's close enough
and getting more traffic than most other blogs combined, one of the
earliest examples of popular self-publishing.

Doc.Weblogs.com - Web site of "Doc" Searls, former PR executive and
co-author of the book Cluetrain Manefesto, focused on technology, media and
weblog trends.

Everlasting Blort ( http://blort.meepzorp.com ) - hilarious collection of
bizarre photos with understated commentary

Evhead.com - Weblog of Evan Willaims, creator of the popular blog
publishing software Blogger.com

Fark.com - Fabulous community-based weblog generating dozens of short links
each day, mostly to weird and hilarious new items. Premier time wasting site.


HasidicRebel.blogspot.com - New blog by anonymous member of Boro Park
Brooklyn's ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish community, a window into a life
most of us could previously have only imagined

Joho the Blog ( http://hyperorg.com/blogger ) - Blog of Dave Weinberger,
fabulous conference speaker, humorist, and expert commentator on media,
technology and weblogs, and co-author of the book Cluetrain Manifesto.

Instapundit.com - Outstanding news aggregation and analysis, with a
conservative political bent, but Glenn Reynolds.

KenLayne.com - Insightful commentary on life by Los Angeles-based
journalist Ken Layne.

MattWelch.com - Insightful commentary on life and politics by Los
Angeles-based journalist Matt Welch.

Megnut.com - Insightful commentary on life by recent New Yorker Meg
Hourihan, co-creator of the popular weblog publishing platform Blogger.com.

MetaFilter.com - Popular vibrant group weblog focused on weblog culture,
media, technology and other issues.

NickDenton.org - Insightful commentary on life and politics by former
Financial Times
journalist-turned-Internet-entrepreneur-turned-blog-media-publisher Nick
Denton, publisher of Gawker.com, Gizmodo.com and other would-be commercial
weblog projects.

Salam Pax (http://dear_raed.blogspot.com ) - Fantastically popular and
media-hyped weblog published anonymously by a citizen of Iraq living in
Baghdad (using the pseudonym Salam Pax, Arabic and Latin for ("Peace
Peace"). Began publication several months before the recent Iraq war.
Unparalleled perspective of issues affecting that country today.

Scripting.com - Weblog of pioneering and hyper-opinionated Dave Winer,
creator of the popular weblog publishing software Radio Userland,
obsessively focused on weblogs, weblogs and weblogs.

Slashdot.com - Hugely popular community-based weblog focused on Linux, open
source programming and other technology issues. Getting "Slashdotted,"
meaning a link from Slashdot, is synonymous with getting crushing amounts
of traffic to your site, likely to crash your web servers.

TonyPierce.com - Brilliant writing and photography on_hard to say. Lots of
imagination and commentary of life is Los Angeles. The master of the photo
commentary.

Best,

Rick


Rick E. Bruner, Executive Summary Consulting, Inc.
http://executivesummary.com
Internet marketing and media consulting, research, analysis
Co-author: "Net Results: Best Practices for Web Marketing"
rick_at_e-summary.com 646 554-0963 New York, NY
Also, daily Net marketing news: http://marketingfix.com
& personal ranting about nothing: http://bruner.net/blog





Received on Tue Jun 24 2003 - 09:18:23 CDT