Down with The Blog! Long live The Blog!

The Internets, especially the blog worlds, are going nuts because of a recent article by Time mag’s Michael Kinsley that asks: How many blogs does the world need? It is a Malthusian question to be sure. Are there too many blogs? is really what Kinsley wants to ask, and quite obviously the answer, for him, is yes. Some of you may feel this way too. To you, I would ask, why? Why are there too many? Will the “series of tubes” known as the Internet reach a threshold which will burst the entire blogosphere into little bits? Okay, sorry I took that too far but still, the point of the matter is that Kinsley is a journalist who later became a blogger. Hence, his primary motivation and allegiance is toward journalism. This fact in itself is not a bad thing. But Kinsley is not interested in the “journalistic spirit” or the “craft of journalism” but he’s interested in the business and particularly the profession of journalism. And his Time article is nothing less than a long-winded 2008 version of the same old anti-blogging rhetoric coming from journalistic quarters. Blogs and bloggers are just making their jobs that much harder.

First, they have to be totally up to speed to make sure that some blogger or newspaper competitor hasn’t already made the point or reported the factlet that they intend to write about.

Second, they have to be fast, fast, fast to beat that other fellow to the punch. This has always been true in journalism and used to be considered part of the fun. But it’s less fun when half the people in the world could now be that other fellow

Third, while an article a day used to be a typical reporter’s quota (or in the leisurely precincts of newsmagazines, an article a week), reporters are now expected to blog 24/7 as well. Not only that, they must perpetually update their stories, as in the old days of multiple newspaper editions. And they may well be handed a voice recorder and/or webcam and told to file audio and video too. Meanwhile, they are glancing over their shoulder and awaiting the Grim Reaper from HR with word of the latest round of layoffs.

Boohoo. Mr. Kinsley, would you like a Kleenex?

Now, I’m just being extra-dickheadish here because I do understand what Kinsley is trying to say, which is that the sheer number of blogs make it so that you can’t possibly read all of the new stuff. Yes, that is true. But why would anyone who is not a journalist read every single new post on their favorite blogs? Well that’s because Kinsley, without making it explicit, has assumed a journalistic audience and assumes that everyone reading Time has the kinds of deadlines that he speaks of. This is an error of writing not in substance so I’ll give him a pass since journalists aren’t the only ones who often talk to teach other in a sea of self-referentiality.

Further, I challenge Kinsley’s notion of “information overload.” Is all of this new content supposed to “threaten” the human consciousness? I have a very difficult time believing that not because of I’m a closet-humanist (if only) but because there is a little something called Google Reader. Now you all know I drink the Google haterade by the crate but a good service is a good service and Google Reader is one. It compiles all of your blog subscriptions and lets you know of new posts in a reverse chronological order, much like all webmail. Not only that, it’s free. Maybe someone should shoot Kinsley an email. He could use some help.

And lastly, if there are too many blogs to read…don’t read them. Isn’t that a pretty simple solution to Kinsley’s problem? I think that in retrospect, future readers will view his article as someone who complained about early cable-television as having too many channels. Does anyone have that problem now?

X-posted at Human Potential