Australian IT - Welcome to bloggers world (Bernard Lane, FEBRUARY 13, 2003)
Yet another blogging book review? Yet another attempt to define and refine the term ‘weblog’? Maybe, but Bernard Lane does neatly splice together several of the pitches made in the five books that he has just “ploughed through”. The prices for each book that Bernard has quoted intrigue me a bit so I have added in the amazon.com prices in brackets. Where do you buy your books Bernard? (Bernard tells me that the ‘US’ in front of each price is a glitch and shouldn’t be there - see comments).
And the five books are;
Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content
By Biz Stone, New Riders, 309pp, $US63.95 (US$20.99)
Essential Blogging
By Cory Doctorow et al, O’Reilly, 244pp, $US69.95 (US$20.97)
The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog
By Rebecca Blood, Perseus, 195pp, $US27 (US$11.20)
We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs
By Paul Bausch et al, Wiley, 313pp, $US62.95 (US$20.99)
We’ve Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture
By Rebecca Blood et al, Perseus, 242pp, $US42 (US$14.00)
Much can be learned simply by browsing weblogs. After a while, the contrast between those that point outwards (filter blogs) and those that turn inwards (personality blogs) may seem less important.
A filter blog selects from among countless websites; that selection reveals personality and thereby draws in readers. And even if personal blogs are too preoccupied to help pre-surf the web, at least they link to other compatible bloggers and social networks form around their comment boxes.
It is all social currency, in the opinion of Douglas Rushkoff, one of many earlier voices of the web competing to be heard in the book We’ve Got Blog. “Content is just a medium for interaction between people,” he says. “The only difference between the Internet and its media predecessors is that the user can collect and share social currency in the same environment.”