The Galloping Beaver
So is it about the blogging or is it about recognition?is blogging an act of ego?
It is ironic also that many bloggers mock the MSM,but find some kind of affirmation when the MSM mention their blog...
just some thoughts,by the way I linked
an article on blogging worth a read:
"Blogging The Nihilist Impulse"
read here
http://www.eurozine.com/articles...-lovink-
en.html
"One wonders if the cleansing of the blogrolls by the big US blogs is intended to limit the traffic to the smaller blogs."
Dave, as someone who used to post frequently on DKos, MyDD, back in the Dean days, I think you are accurate in this statement. The "big" players have joined together to share ad revenue, and the amnesty seems like another way to cement status.
There was a original poster on DKos, Marisacat, who has since been banned for "outing" a Democratic operative, who attempted to slant the discourse. She now has her own site, which has become a great place to learn about the inner workings of these supposed "democratic" blogs. I would recommend reading her, she is unique perspective. These blogs have used the passion of the left to further their own ends, and now places like DKos are just party propaganda sites, working with the establishment they claimed to detest.
If I may be so bold, that's why I think that aggregates being the dominant feature in the Canadian blogosphere is a good thing.
Sure, you have your more well-known blogs, but the little guys posts show up as well, and fellow bloggers and other readers will recognize if that blog is high-quality, regardless of how big they are... so I think that evens things out.
We also dont have a lot of blogs that are money-makers or revenue driven like Kos and Atrios are, so that isn't as big of a factor up here either.
Dirk, I agree. Many bloggers are in it for many different reasons. In my case, it started as a pastime. I continues to a greater or lesser degree, to be just that. However, it's the old story of why do it if nobody's reading? So there has to be a reasonable number of eyes making contact with the information to make it worthwhile. Yup, that's ego, but it is also perhaps a voice with some amplitude which was never permitted before the freedom of the internet and blogs. Lovink calls it decay but that depends entirely on your point of view. If it's voices which were already there but held to virtual silence, then it is growth.
As for mocking the MSM, I don't think any of the contributors here do it any more or less than they did before they started blogging. It's just now, instead of being voiceless there is the ability, even in a small way, to make oneself heard. And, while I know you were speaking generally, it brings up an interesting point. Blogs are not good news organs. We rely on the MSM for the information which fuels commentary. What is new, perhaps, is that the MSM has to sit up and take note. If they botch a report or slant it, they will be taken to task by someone in the blogosphere. However, they have all the resources. With no reporters blogs offer little in the way of "new" information. So, shorter: We can mock the MSM all we want. We need them.
Steve, thanks for Marisacat's link. I wondered, right from the start, whether this was driven by a desire to eliminate the competition, so to speak. Certainly those who now hire and pay staff to run these things need to try to consolidate their own positions. That makes them commercial enterprises. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, but their success has come with the aid of a lot of others who they have now shut out. One so much as announced they were in it for the paycheck and without it, they'd be gone.
Good point Scott. dKos could have been an aggregator but went a different route. I think this episode underscores the need to have the blog aggregates remain relatively mild on the "rules" front. It allows the readers to decide what floats.
Interestingly, three posts here gained little traction at Progressive Bloggers but took off in terms of links and trackbacks. That is not denigrating the value of Progressive Bloggers but it shows that even aggregators have, and should have, limited scope which identifies their purpose.
I have been finding for the past several months that I click through to read on dKos about the same amount that I do on MSNBC. Actually less even given that I access the Newsweek writers and Olbermann via MSNBC.
Someone at Mariscat described the so called community there as being one now composed of the attention challenged, as in "pay attention to meeee" or words to that effect. That's a shallow observation. That's at play to greater and lesser extents in all bloggers. Singling out the dKos people only points up the way attention seeking is playing out in the person making the comment.
I'm amused by the self-aggrandizing use of the characterization of "Breaking" in every third diary about something that happened the day before yesterday.
I'm bemused by the presumption of all knowing potency that permeates the place now that it's pre-emption by the power structure of the Democratic Party has all but assured that it will never again have a noticeable effect.
And I'm just plain bored by its prosaic "me too" platitudiness.
I find that since I just don't like to read group weblogs (well, with the exception of Canadian weblogs, but most of them have a dominant author), most of the A-listers end up falling off my screen when they flip from single-person to "Lefty Weblog, Inc." I keep Atrios around because it's still basically a one-person joint, but I've swept all of the other Big American Weblogs off both of my bookmarks list.
(But I think the only Big Weblog(tm) I was ever linked to from was Firedoglake back when it was a single-person operation getting around the same number of hits at TSFR. When it flipped to a Lefty Weblog, Inc, I was sort of relieved when they dropped me for not being lefty enough, because it meant I could drop them without feeling guilty about it. It's easy to not care about the big weblogs when they don't care about you in the first place.)
I just added marisacat to my blogroll. Good find. And the March of the Ants continues....
Dave, are you hoping Billmon will return? I think he's done for good.
Is there a reason you're keeping dKos and Eschaton on the roll here?
If my vote counts I'd say remove them. Clearly they don't need us.
I'll be doing a cleaning later today. Dead links and... ahem, the super-elites. 
Hello!
Not to drop in uninvited, but I noticed referrals to Mcat from this Haloscan comment thread.
Thanks for nice words... 
I just really dislike operatives working the new media, presenting as "leftischer friends" to the rank-and-file, building fake "communities which day after day are nothing more than shunning societies.
So, I post what I think... and it sure pisses the Boyz off.
You're always welcome Marisacat! In fact, you're going to see your name on the blogroll very shortly.
Ta Da!
"
Coeruleus where the global warming deniers get taken to the woodshed."
Oh no you don't! I do not want those cretins in my shed, I just got the stink out from the last time the "New Government of Canada" dropped by. Coeruleus can keep his diseased livestock at his own place.
And thanks for all the links over the past year or two.
Good job taking the elites to task for their snubs.
Nice summary. Everybody seems to be getting a sense of "I got mine, Jack", from this move. Yes, the biggies do still link to smaller blogs, but either they're ones where they've grown too quickly to be ignored, or they're former commentators on the Mother Site.
Anybody who doesn't fit those two categories...
Anyway, you're added to my roll.
A very nice summary, though I would go farther than to say it's a "touch" arrogant.
To my mind it's a major miscalculation. And those big boys are about to be marginalized by those (the small bloggers who post regularly and therefore read blogs and link regularly) who would be not only their greatest allies, but actually their most trusted officers in the fight ahead.
But now? Screw 'em.
Sorry for the late comment I'm just catching up on this.
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