The Senescent Man

Don't judge blogging by the "average" blog. The average blog is amateurish, just as the average crooner is no American Idol. The law of large numbers guarantees that. How many blogs are out there? Maybe millions. Soon billions. This means, of course, that the vast majority of blogs will be of no interest to you or me. Even a 95th-percentile blog--judged by its quality--has little chance of making it into our busy reading schedules. But don't judge the blogosphere by the average quality. At the top of this huge pyramid are thousands of readable and useful blogs. Think of the blogosphere as a bookstore where no book is refused. A store bigger than the Mall of America. (Ocean, pyramid, bookstore ... too many metaphors, I know.)

Blogs really do threaten the mainstream media. Thought experiment: Suppose you call yourself a pro-technology supply-sider. (That's what I happen to be, because I think Moore's Law and Say's Law drive growth and prosperity in the world.) A reader with such an outlook will find a home at RealClear Politics and Tech Central Station because the editors of those überblogs see the world in the same way. You might ask, "Well, doesn't the Wall Street Journal see the world likewise?" Yeah, mostly. But the WSJ needs thousands of employees and tons of ink and paper to produce its product. RealClear Politics gets by with fewer than ten employees.

// posted by The Senescent Man @ 5:00 PM