Has the Internet become a self-licking ice cream cone?
Here is Tiger Hawk spending a day (yesterday) commenting on every post by Instapundit
As you might figure, Tiger Hawk is a law school graduate.
Here is the "Second Derivative". There will not be a "third derivative" at this site. (That was ambiguous, wasn't it. I mean to say I will not be commenting on each of the comments.)
Regards — Cliff
Cliff,
ReplyDeletePlease keep this stuff up -- I love the idea of talking about blogs...blogging on blogging, or, in this case, comments on comments.
There's a book I've been meaning to mention to you, Kad, Renee, Dick, Lynne, and Mimi -- it's called Say Everything by Scott Rosenberg. I'm not done with it yet but it's due back to Pollard in a few...it's all about blogging.
The first part of the book is the author getting into the history of blogging, but the second part gets into the stuff that I think is way more interesting -- what do blogs really mean, what are they worth, what will they replace, where are they headed, etc. I am hoping to write some type of review when I'm all done with the book and then post it.
I am a huge fan of the "second derivative" as it relates to replies to comments to the author. To me, what makes blogs more interesting than old-fashioned print media is that they can be interactive. The difference between reading an essay in RSOL, for example, as opposed to Newsweek, is that with RSOL I can instantly write back to the author, ask him to clarify or point out something I particularly agree or disagree with, and he or she can write back.
A friend of mine used to blog and what frustrated me is that he would write a really thoughtful entry, I would take the time to write a comment with some points for further discussion, but then it would just die. From that was born my own comment-to-the-comment policy.
Then there are blogs like End of Nihilism that just don't have comments at all. To each his or her own..
A great example of why I love comments can be found on the LiL thread about interest level in the School Committee. Mimi "headlined" a comment I had written about the lack of challengers, offered some thoughts of her own, and then BAM! all of a sudden there was a big slew of thoughtful comments from Bob Forrant, Victoria Fahlberg, and a host of others that helped explain the situation.
best,
gp