As you can see by the overwhelming response to my live journal entry about blogs, I’ve touched a nerve.
(Disclaimer – I’m not a real person. I make up a lot of stuff.)
The web, to some, is this innately democratic thing. And things such as blogs are the way in which their voices are heard. At some point in the life cycle of anything that takes more than one person to make, like say an airplane, you need to let everyone talk and feel that they have had “input.” (Quotey-quotes around words mean that the stuff in the quotey-quotes are really a lie – it ain’t what we really mean.)
In the computer/software industry, you see this all the time. Most of the time, the moment passes and everyone forgets about it. But the latest versions of this manifest democracy are blogs, of which Live Journal is a big one, and wikis. I can understand the benefit the collective mind might demonstrate. However, in most larger efforts, you eventually need a king or some other kind of leader to arbitrate the final decisions. The idea of a committee designing a horse comes to mind.
The form of a blog, the way it looks and feels, seems a little different. It seems to be just another kind of personal website however. It doesn’t seem to be changing the world or at least not my world. I like having blog, on LiveJournal, as much as the next blogger, but I wouldn’t presume to think it is an outlet for me to influence the world.
For the record, that makes me better than most of you. Especially, you over there, the guy who doesn’t wear shoes in a public restroom. You do know you are standing in urine, right?
