Category Archives: Blogosphere

| Blogosphere, Media, Technology

Blogs aren’t special

The Star has an opinion this week on the nature of the blogosphere and its impact on traditional journalism. The conclusion is that the relationship is symbiotic, and they both help each other.

I agree with many of the article’s points (especially that blogging is more like books — anyone can do it and the quality varies widely), but it’s still a bit simplistic. People are separated into two groups: technophiles, who blog, and technophobes, who report for newspapers. There’s an implicit dismissal of those who think they’re in both categories or neither.

The other problem (and this applies to just about anyone who writes in a big-picture way about blogs) is that blogs aren’t clearly defined. Yeah, this is a blog. Is Boing-Boing a blog? Daily Kos? They say they are, so I guess so. What about Fark? Drew Curtis says no. If a newspaper uses WordPress as its content-management system, does that turn it into a blog? What’s the difference? Are web comics blogs? What about photo blogs? Or Web forums?

There’s this implication out there that blogs have changed the nature of journalism and the Internet in a way Web 1.0 didn’t or couldn’t. I disagree. There was plenty of original journalism and criticism of media before Blogspot and WordPress. There’s just more of it now.

High-quality blogs are successful because they’re highly-specialized and they’re written by people who know what they’re talking about. Even newspapers with large staff don’t have enough resources to hire a full-time astronomy reporter or a full-time public transit reporter. So people with interests in these things turn to blogs, which might be written by experts in their spare time or by professionals who get enough traffic to live on.

“Blog” isn’t a magic word. It’s just a form of content delivery. The Internet — which allows people to find exactly what they want fast — is still the problem that’s killing mainstream media. Some are learning how to deal with it, by launching their own blogs about specialized topics. Others still have cluttered homepages and make it impossible to quickly find content they’ve spent a lot of money to buy or produce.

They’ll learn eventually. They must in order to survive.

| Blogosphere, Media, West Island

West Island isn’t immune from British tabloidery

With news that West Islander Autumn Kelly is going to marry a member of the British Royal Family, the tabloids are all trying to get information about her roots here. Even local blogger Kristian Gravenor is on the case, offering money for photos (and handing out flyers all over Pointe-Claire — an act I tried to explain to him might get him on some enemies lists).

Casey McKinnon, who went to school with Kelly at St. Thomas High, isn’t game. She’s steadfastly refusing to cooperate with the many requests she’s gotten for information.

If your morals aren’t so fortitudon… fortiti… fortati… strong, and you went to St. John Fisher in the 80s, St. Thomas in the early 90s and McGill before 2002, you might be able to score some nice moolah invading some girl’s privacy.

| Blogosphere, Fun, Navel-gazing

I stand by my choice

Montreal bloggers have some odd choices for fantasy vacations. (Marge Simpson? Really?)

Gimme some of this and some of that. Or maybe merge them somehow?

Speaking of YULblog, it seems Happy hates me. Why? Everyone loves me, especially dogs. Now you might argue (as Christelle did) that Happy has never met me before, and that it was in a bar packed with people and loud noises late at night. But I think it’s because Happy is a stupid, mean dog. She doesn’t even read this blog!

| Blogosphere, Slow News Day

I’m a dirt-eater and proud of it

940 News’s Ken Connors talked this morning about the good ol’ days, when children ate lead-encrusted dirt, played with fire, sniffed spraycan propellant and shot each other with BB guns. And somehow they’re still around to whine about all the safety measures society has put in place for children.

Well, there’s a few things wrong with that argument. First of all, we can’t talk to all the people that died from those things since they’re, well, dead. Just because all the people we find now survived those days doesn’t mean the survival rate was 100%.

Secondly, life expectancy at birth has increased by about a decade over the past 50 years. Part of that is due to new medicine and treatments, but increased safety can’t be discounted as a part of it as well.

Finally, if you want to go back to the good ol’ days with none of society’s current overprotections, you’re welcome to emigrate to a developing country and eat their lead-encrusted dirt.

That said, some points are worth considering. It’s becoming common knowledge that the increase in allergies today is due in part to the sterile lifestyle of some children who aren’t exposed to small amounts of toxins at an early age. And the drop in outdoor play activities (has this really occurred among children?) is making us fatter and lazier.

I think we can find some middle ground between sterility and Darwinism.

| Blogosphere, Business, In the news, Technology

Mark Goldberg: clueless about cluelessness of cluelessness

Patrick points us to a blog post from Alec Saunders refuting another blog post from Mark Goldberg which criticized a Gazette editorial based on an op-ed from Michael Geist on wireless rate plans in Canada. (Phew.)

The argument is over the inflated prices of data rate plans in Canada. The U.S., home to the iPhone, offers crazy-cheap plans for both voice and data, while here we have three wireless providers who offer expensive daytime service and through-the-roof prices for data transfer. (This is why I never surf the Internet from my phone.)

I won’t add comments, since they’re already criticizing each other. Suffice it to say Geist’s point still stands, and the blogs are debating irrelevant minutiae.

| Blogosphere, Fun, Montreal, My articles

The ultimate Transformers geek

Two articles this weekend by yours truly:

This week’s blog is Urban Photo (or should I say “URBANPHOTO”?) by freelance writer Christopher DeWolf. It’s one of the ones that’s been on my list for a while (long before he asked me to write about it). It covers urban life and design with an emphasis on photography. Its contributors include blogosphere familiars like Kate McDonnell and A.J. Kandy.

Also this week is a Justify Your Existence profile of Transformers collector Daniel Arseneault. He has 1,700 of the action figures but still manages to have a normal-sounding life. Yeah, he lives in his parents’ basement (with a staircase that forces you to bend down as you descend lest you hit your head), but he’s an auto mechanic and sport enthusiast with a fiancée. Read up about him here and on his website, or join his Montreal Transformers Fans Facebook group.

And while you’re checking out Montreal Diary this week, you can read Amy Luft’s recounting of last week’s water fight.

| Blogosphere

Cheap, universal health care: possible?

Montreal writer Thoth Harris has an interesting question about health care in light of Michael Moore’s Sicko: Why not copy the system used in Taiwan?

As Harris explains it, Taiwan’s health care system is cheap, universal and available. The main reason he cites is that Taiwan’s system is more “egalitarian” (*cough*communist*cough*), and doctors make about the same salary as other workers there.

I don’t know if that’s the whole story, or if it would help here. Though I do think if our legislature was more like theirs it would be pretty fun to watch.

| Blogosphere, My articles

Un titre bilingue for a bilingual blog

This week’s blog is An Unexamined Life, written by an anonymous (well, I know who she is because she added me on Facebook) bilingual mother whose kids don’t know about it (hopefully they won’t figure it out). It’s another in the people-I-emailed-in-February- but-haven’t-spoken-to-since- so-they-probably-thought- I-forgot-about-them camp.

It’s a personal blog (sometimes feeling almost a bit too personal), and very poetic. Check it out.

My bank of blogs to profile is nearing empty, so I’m going to start another round. Know of any local blogs that should get more attention? Email me (blog at fagstein.com). Here are my preferred criteria:

  • Authored by a Montrealer or Montrealers, or about Montreal in some way (by Montreal I refer to the greater metropolitan area, including the West Island and nearby shores)
  • Updates often (at least once a week)
  • General audience (meaning not someone’s LiveJournal recounting their daily minutiae and friend dramas)
  • Unique in some way (interesting to read, interesting to write about)
  • Not one I (or somebody else) has already written about (search this blog’s archives for mentions)