World Wide Blog

Since I first started my website, which was essentially built around my weblog, the number of weblogs on the web has exploded. The first few I knew of were mostly creations of a few high tech geeks. Software soon put it in the hands of thousands. Most journalists and leading technology thinkers have weblogs now. Lots of famous people (e.g. Rupaul, William Shatner) have weblogs, though somehow I think it's generally not a good sign if an actor has enough time to be writing in his/her weblog, and the roster of those who do is proof of that. Still, I find that more and more of the time I spend on the web is spent perusing weblogs. That's a far cry from my browsing habits of just a few years ago, and it's a good thing.
I was reminded of this when I went to add some links to my weblog link list. I found some blogs which had moved, like Allen's, and added a few links to some blogs I've taken to perusing every day, like that of Lawrence Lessig. I know more about what my favorite and most prolific bloggers are thinking from day to day than I do about my closest friends and family, and that's not because I spend any less time on the phone or in person with my loved ones than other normal people. The weblog is just a highly efficient bullhorn for one's mental preoccupations, and it's a wonderful thing when interesting people pick it up. It's no wonder that I know more about Adam and Jenny's daily activities now that they live in Boston than I did about their daily lives when they lived nearby in Seattle.
It's easier and more efficient to peruse a series of blogs and find minds you respect than any other method I've encountered. There's a natural tendency among the earliest bloggers (I don't think I was early enough to qualify for that group) to roll their eyes when mainstream journalists like John Dvorak finally hop on the bandwagon to declare that blogs are the next big thing. He writes:
"Is blogging a stepping stone to something else? If so, what?
While the smug I-told-you-so