2005: Blogged
2005: Blogged — Dispatches from the Blogosphere, edited by Tim Warstall (Friday Books) is another example that blogging has been noticed by the traditional media. While there are all sorts of “Best of 2005″ books and magazines out there now, this new book is one of the first, if not the first, that deals exclusively with blog posts. The editor, Tim Worstall, one of the UK’s top bloggers, goes through an entire year, picking out various posts that deal with 2005’s issues, both big and small, from Iraq to Michael Jackson.
This book is British and has a decidedly British slant to it — mostly political in nature. All of the bloggers are British or living in Britain, and many of the issues discussed will be unfamiliar to the American reader. However, it is interesting to see what “riles up” a blogger of another country. Some of the bloggers including in the collection are well-known bloggers that write blogs such as Complete Tosh, Blithering Bunny,and Norm Blog.
Although it is great that there is a book focusing solely on blogging posts, there is one big problem here — the fact that it is a book. A collection of various blog posts doesn’t truly capture what blogging is all about. Many of these blog posts could have just been published on the editorial page of a newspaper. While it is exciting that new voices are given a chance to be heard, I began to forget that I was reading a book about blogs. Without the community, the links, the comments — a blog post is more of a short essay or opinion piece. This is all fine, of course, but it misses out on what makes blogging so much a part of our lives — not to compete with the mainstream media, but to communicate with other bloggers.
This book showcases some great new British writing talent, but it fails to show us why 2005 was such a watershed year for the blogging community.
This entry was posted by Courtney Gidts on Monday, December 19th, 2005 at 6:30 am and is filed under Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
on December 19, 2005 at 10:18 am angelina wrote:
“there is one big problem here — the fact that it is a book.”
exactly. How can one hyperlink that which is un-hyperlinkable?
So lame.
on December 19, 2005 at 10:40 am Tim Worstall wrote:
Fair comments there I think. I had to specifically search for pieces that made sense on the printed, as opposed to electronic, page.
on December 19, 2005 at 11:35 am Neil wrote:
One nice thing about the book was that I did learn about some U.K. bloggers that I never heard of before, and now have checked them out via the Web.
on December 19, 2005 at 7:10 pm psychotoddler wrote:
Good points. Blogging is an interactive medium. Without the ability to add and respond to comments, it’s not really a blog anymore. It’s a collection of rants.