Aaron emailed: “I also feel like the blogging community is a bit impersonal. It’s a bit like sifting through a sandbox to find an interesting grain, and when you find it you put it in a box until you can think of something useful to do with it. …”
I have to agree to some extent. But that’s not so much the fault of bloggers as it is the newness of the medium, the “blogosphere,” itself. Sure, we can “Google” our way to subject matter but then we must sift through many, often thousands, of entries in the pursuit of something of perceived relevant value.
Let’s recognize, too, that blogging is not necessarily journalism. Sure, some journalists blog and some bloggers are journalists. But for the most part, I think it’s safe to say, journalists represent only a small segment of the sphere. So is it journalistic enlightenment we seek or simply entertainment?
Contributions by journalists are perhaps easier to find because of the specific nature of their subject matter. Non-specific entries are, well, more difficult to specify in our search criteria. So the arteries of the blogosphere may seem clogged with superfluity (is that a word?) without a simple a way to filter through it all. Except, of course, by utilizing more specific search parameters. Generalistic search criteria yield generalistic search results.
So it sounds to me like Aaron may be using “interesting” as his search criteria. If so, then I suppose he is just sifting sand.