current events. Weblogs are online journals (“Web” + “log” =
“Weblog”) written by people concerning their own experiences, but many Weblogs go beyond this by interweaving personal experience with what is happening in the news. Daypop, a search engine ded- icated to retrieving news and Weblogs, defines Weblogs (also called blogs) as “A new form of personal journalism. Think of them as opinion columns or slices of life. Newspapers give you the interna- tional headlines and weblogs give you both a subjective view of cur- rent events and a personal view of the author's life.” Other characteristics of a Weblog are frequent updates and links between author commentary and articles elsewhere on the Web. Weblogs can be updated frequently because of blogging software. Blog soft- ware, such as that offered by Blogger.com, allows anyone with access to a computer on the Web to update and publish entries instantaneously. In fact, Blogger.com not only offers the software but it will host your blog for free, too. (More about creating your own blog in Chapter Eight.)
Blogs emphasize the writer’s personality, but there is also a sense of camaraderie between readers and authors and authors and other authors. Dave Winer, a software developer, president of Userland Software, and one of the Web’s earliest bloggers (he began a Weblog called “DaveNet” in late 1994), wrote, “A weblog is personal—it’s done by a person, not an organization. You see a per- sonality. It’s not washed-out and normed-up, the bizarre shows through. That’s why weblogs are interesting. … No weblog stands alone, they are relative to each other and to the world. The Link and Think project, as an example, is part of the weblog community and part of the World AIDS Day community. My weblog, Scripting News (http://www.scriptingnews.com), is part of the weblog com- munity and part of the community of independent developers, particularly those using scripting environments. The same can be said of most weblogs that gain audiences, they connect people together using the Web through common interests.”22
As a sidebar, Mr. Winer has formally wagered that by 2007, more readers will get news from blogs than from the New York Times.
Martin Nisenholtz, head of NYT’s digital operations, has taken him up on that wager.23
Salon’s Scott Rosenberg offered this concise definition:
“Weblogs, typically, are personal Web sites operated by individuals who compile chronological lists of links to stuff that interests them, interspersed with information, editorializing and personal asides. A good weblog is updated often, in a kind of real-time improvisation, with pointers to interesting events, pages, stories and happenings elsewhere on the Web. New stuff piles on top of the page; older stuff sinks to the bottom.” See the Salon site at http://www.salon.com/tech/col/rose/1999/05/28/weblogs.
A few examples will adequately illustrate the connection between the news and Weblogs:
Title: SpinLine
Description: Opinion on politics, technology, and anything newsworthy. Topics in early 2003 included President Bush’s tax cut recommendations, the Atkin’s diet, leftist movie stars, and the meaning behind your car’s “check engine light.”
URL: http://spinline.net
Title: Daily Kos
Description: Political analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation. An extremely well executed blog with plenty of links to other bloggers, opinion journals, and comments from its readers.
URL: http://www.dailykos.com
Title: The Obscure Store
Description: Jim Romenesko mines the Web for offbeat news stories. Extensive links to news sources and other blogs.
URL: http://www.obscurestore.com
Other Weblogs are concerned with the special interests of their authors. The range of interests is universal. If your passion is the arts, you will find Weblogs discussing composers and painters. There are Weblogs discussing librarianship and sci- ence. Bloggers who love (or hate) to travel post on the Web.
Stephen Levy writes in Newsweek, “There are blogs devoted to cats, blogs about knitting, blogs about 802.11 wireless standards, blogs about ‘The Golden Girls’ TV show, blogs about baseball, blogs about sex (hey, it is the Internet). One blog is written in the voice of Julius Caesar, tracking the Roman’s progress as he takes on Gaul. There are blog short stories and a blog novel in progress.”24Taking Andy Warhol’s famous quote to the next log- ical level, author David Weinberger, considering many of these niche topics, says, “In the future, everyone will be famous to 15 people on the Web.”25These may provide a sense of the variety of Weblogs you may find:
Library & Information Science News http://www.lisnews.com
Librarian Blake Carver and his associates compose this col- laborative blog for information scientists (see Figure 2.2). News stories relating to technology and libraries are collected from the Web and linked to from this site. Site users contribute stories also. The “see also” section offers links to other library-related blogs.
Other blogs produced by librarians include Jessamyn West’s
“Librarian.net” and Steven M. Cohen’s “Librarystuff.net.”
Librarians interested in blogs by librarians or at libraries throughout the world may want to visit Peter Scott’s directory of weblogs at Libdex (http://www.libdex.com/weblogs.html).
Oakland Athletics Blog
http://elephantsinoakland.blogspot.com
For baseball fans of the Oakland Athletics and others, this nicely done Weblog discusses broadcasting blackouts, sports books, player’s salaries and trades, and last night’s game.
Where There’s Smoke
http://www.wheretheressmoke.net
Author Kevin Smokler describes his pages as “A weblog of con- spicuous cultural consumption.” Topics covered include film, books, music, and humor.
Some blogs are very subject specific; they come and go as dic- tated by events. For example “As the WorldCom Turns: A Blog About WorldCom” was Ben Silverman’s running commentary on this fiasco until, on January 6, 2003, he ended the blog writing that he had Figure 2.2 The Library & Information Science News Weblog (used by per-
mission LISNews.com and Blake Carver, copyright 2003). Note:
The information is library-oriented and the articles link to news stories and other relevant sites.
become “sick of this story.” Readers may still view the blog’s archive, though, at http://www.dotcomscoop.com/worldcom.html.