Posted Wednesday 02 April 2003

Bloggs for the Huddled Masses

What is new about weblogs?

What's new here is that anyone can publish. No thought required about the format, about FTP clients. Just open a webpage, type into a box, and click. Bango! You're published. This means that ...

This makes web-publishing as easy as surfing, or operating a television. Your mama could do it. That means it's easy.

In addition, now we get the smarty-pants, the artsy, the web designers. Suddenly they're artistes. They can tweak and twitter, and all the world is aglow in the bask of their friends, and wine. No doubt. This is a fine feeling. I may sneer, but wouldn't I go back to college age -- just for an hour -- and experience the richness of the emotions among my peers, the admiration, the fun? Of course I would. You would too. Don't lie. You know you would.

So the point is: these young ones get all artsy, and by golly, here's the truth: This is a new creative outlet! It's a new outlet in three ways. You can have beautiful layouts. You can have cool pix. You can write with beauty and style.

If you got no style, you can scour for cool stuff and post that. Sort of getting your admiration by being the most clever scavenger-hunter in the group. You remember that from 5th grade, don't you? Scavenger hunts?

This is something new. It will grow like topsy.