Current reading

I’m trying to build up the collection of books on blogs and blogging at the library where I work. Just arrived is Blog! How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business and culture by David Kline and Dan Burstein.

I’ve only just started reading it. Divided into three sections: Politics and Society, Business and Economics, and Media and Culture, with an essay introducing each section, it’s a collection of interviews with a range of bloggers, including Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (DailyKos), Ana Marie Cox (founder of Wonkette), Robert Scoble (Scobleizer), Wil Wheaton (Go Wes!), Arianna Huffington (Huffington Post), and Andrew Sullivan.

My first impulse was that it was a little strange to have a book about bloggers and blogging, but I think I’ll revise that judgement because I think it is important to have a book like this for those unfamiliar with blogging to read and digest. Also nothing beats a book for portability and ease of use, in my humble opinion.

I’m looking forward to reading this book a bit more closely. Over lunch yesterday, skimmed an interview with Paul Saffo (technology forecaster who predicted, “more than a dozen years ago… that within a very few years a PC without an Internet connection would be ‘as useful as a paperweight.’ ” (p.335) He predicts that blogging as we know it today “will evolve into something more”, and that the word “blog”, a “most uneuphonious term”, as he describes it, will disappear. Whatever form blogging eventually takes, Saffo believes it will “continue to serve as some sort of new intellectual agora, a new common ground, in response to the failures of traditional Big Media organisations”. (p.341)

Saffo also questioned the notion of blogging being easy – he believes it has to be “as easy as jotting down some notes on a piece of paper” before “everyday people” decide to use the medium. “Remember that most people don’t really know how to write”, he says, and points to people who can’t even put a sentence together – and people who can write but hate to, or are afraid of writing. Saffo points out that “many more people read blogs than have one of their own.” He asks if “print” blogging is going to morph into multimedia blogging instead… (pp.338 – 339)

I suppose this is true enough, but I don’t know if the perceived (in)ability to write stops people from blogging (didn’t stop me! 😉 ). Around here many still don’t know what the term even means, and many still find the technology daunting. Also, many people, if they think about blogging themselves, don’t think they have anything to say! The lack of time or energy to commit to blogging is another factor.

Other books I’ve bought for our library lately: Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble (bought a copy for myself!), and Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson. Also need to order Fans, Bloggers and Gamers by Henry Jenkins (thanks Tama for the pointer!). There’s a couple of others whose titles escape me right now.

Other things I’m reading right now: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (avoided it when Oprah was hyping it but am glad I got over my aversion), and Behind the Scenes in the Blogosphere: Advice from Established Bloggers by Nora Ganim Barnes (pdf – thanks to Micropersuasion for the link). Am girding my loins to start À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust), as inspired by Orange Crate Art.

Categories: books, reading, blogging