14 August 2007

Blogging vs. Web 2.0

Hugh MacLeod's latest post on Why We're All Blogging Less finds me agreeing and disagreeing. Are things really all that bad in the Blogipelago and the Mountains of Web 1.0? Are the Straits of Web 2.0 the only place to be? (What about the Gays of Web 2.0?)

I'm a blag young'un, granted. But since starting my blog last year, I've had to fend off disses from MySpacer blogless peeps. MySpace is grand for creative types and businesses - our band has a MySpace page, albeit young as well.

But the personal pages have always struck me as, um ... kinda lame? I mean, I get it. All the nifty apps 'n' stuff to let people know factoids about you. Peeps can comment. Ok. But rarely do I find anyone who uses the blog function. People seem to stick with the templated, "let us help you put yourself out there" widgets.

My druther is to put myself out there in the form of words. Some snaps are occasionally illustrative, but even the comics are word-based. It's the words, stoopid. It's the communication I groove on, not the advertisements. Cuz that's MySpace, right? Your own personal brand ad space?

I wanted to use a picture that I knew was lurking on a friend's MySpace page, but you can't view pics unless you're a MySpacer. Urgh. So I signed up. Dammit. And color my holier-than-MySpace-self vindicated when the following screen came up during account confirmation:


Aack! Pet peevishness!

Twitter's growing on me - for the blurbs on what you like, what you're doing, etc. I've particularly enjoyed Twittering during concerts. But a 140 character limit makes it tough to convey meaningful schtuff.

And I must concur with Hugh - FaceBook kicks MySpace's arse, for personal networking. Can't attest to the professional kickassedness over LinkedIn yet, but will give it time.

Personally, I'm hoping the blogs that I like and read regularly don't waste away into Twitter burps and social networking sites. What people think, what people feel, what people know, what people want ... these aren't well represented in Web 2.0. Yet?

1 comment:

country mouse said...

Whenever a new guy becomes seriously interested in Beautiful via myspace interfacing (which is just about every other day . . .) she and I look to his page for insight into his person. I'm with you on this one. Either their blogs are underused or misused.

In myspacers' defense, some of them are just far more in tune to the visual than I am (Beautiful's art is almost entirely visual and that's what she respomds to.)

On a different note, you are one of the few who ever read my blog's origins on myspace. It's just not the same there. Sharing oneself via blog posts just isn't what it's all about.