The State of the Blog Are

Warren Ellis, the comic book writer, had a really worthwhile post the other day about the nature of blogs, their usefulness, and as far as blogging goes, content vs reproduction.

Basically he talks about the "early" years of the internet and how an easy role to assume was one of a curator, an archiver of sorts, and I totally identified with this. If I'm not "archiving" or preserving physical media or different reference for use later, I'm holding onto links, posting thoughts, collecting different sources as it were. When weblogs started, wasn't it just a way of archiving your thoughts, in one way or another? When livejournal introduced searching your own blog for specific phrases, when tagging became the rage, isn't this just another way of organizing and referencing? Eventually with the explosion of sites, the massiveness of Google, and the collective nature, the collectors began to collect and disperse in blog form, which is much of what you see today. But the larger point is, as Ellis says, "The world does not need another linkblog." But I'm not quite sure that's true.

It's true, Boing Boing does it better than anyone, they cover pretty much everything, but as Boing Boing Bingo shows, there are a bunch of topics that Boing Boing "specializes" in, and these are subjects that are close to the writer's hearts, write about what you know, etc etc. Neatorama seems to fill in the blanks where Boing Boing (BB) leaves off, the zany bits, and often a couple days behind BB. If they don't catch it, In4mador, Fark, or some other site will have it eventually. it just happens. there are so many sites for finding random things, whatever your heart desires, that yes, the world does not need another linkblog. I think the space in there is for specialized linkblogs. Like how BB specializes in steampunk and net freedom, among other things, the case can be made for linkblogs in other specialized areas. While this blog isn't necessarily a linkblog, that's what it has been since it's inception, and will continue to provide links to as much illustration and design related material as I can afford to do.

That's the thing though, I am not a blogger. This blog started out as a companion to a magazine which never saw more than one issue, and this site has been soley maintained by me. I'm just a student, and one who doesn't make much money at that. I don't have time to blog until my hearts content, and even though I don't have much income, I have no plans to try and make money off this blog, my heart's not in it. My idea is to just pass on as much good stuff I can to whoever wants it, collecting disparate sources of information into one referential point when possible. Admittedly I hate those type of sites, because they are impossible to navigate, and I'm sure anyone who has stumbled upon here has found it hard. But that is all about my making it easy you to find what you need, which, honestly, is not a major concern if you are just stumbling in off the block searching for something, because whatever you're looking for, I'm just providing the link over to it.

Which goes to Ellis's other big point of his post, that of content. Content is key, and content is what this digital world is missing, and what keeps it going, otherwise we'd all just be falling into the same old pattern of "I see, I post" from one person to the next, with no real sources. In fact, most of what I pull my sources from, content producers, are over on the right, and I highly suggest you add them to your net readings.

"The weblog has evolved to the point where, today, it’s possibly the most effective way of transmitting material that any of us could have imagined. Look at Tumblr. It’s the easiest thing in the world for writers to use — and also artists, photographers, videographers, spoken-word artists, musicians and a dozen other things. Imagine a jewellery maker, a laptop musician, a performance artist, a cartoonist and a short-story writer getting together on a single Tumblr to make themselves an internet channel. The tools are all there, baked right into the site for free. Not groupblogging so much as groupcasting."

It's true, there are much better collectors out there than me, and they get paid for it. So really, this blog will be evolving from one of sporadic link dumps to a more personal collection of what I'm working on, inspirations, and the occassional large link dump to clear out my Google reader of stuff that catches my eye and may do the same to you. If I feel like it, I may produce more content specific to the type of thing going on here, I'm not quite sure what that would be yet, but I'll cross that bridge when I want to get there. This will not be unlike most of the other 50million blogs out there, and will only be one of the blogs I personally maintain (I also have a LJ for more random posts, a Twitter for smaller random posts, a website, and possibly another twitter for site updates.)

also, this'll be the last post titled "The ________ Are", it was a dumb gimmick and I tire of it. So, away we go.