The advantage to posting on a less-than-regular basis is a reduction in spam comments. Apparently Swarming Media is less valuable to the truly bizarre, and occasionally brilliant, spam-commenters than it once was...ah, faded glory.
There's a few things that caught my attention tonight. All generally seem to have to do with evolving expectations and standards. Most notably, perhaps, is Paul Boutin's piece for Wired which explains how bloggin' ain't what it used to be. First of all he's right. Blogging isn't the thing it was when I got in this game four years ago with a Scottish travel blog. Maybe this is just a jaded perspective - it's not the same for me, but there are plenty of folks just discovering the medium who are loving the idea of pouring their collective hearts out to the beautifully obscured populace of The Internet. Really, it's simply the arrogance of those of us who have been in on this for a while who are getting sick of it. The medium isn't diminished only its uses by the tech-elite.
That said, I do agree with Boutin's ultimate point that what we consider to be the top blogs today are really nothing more than online magazines (HuffPo, Gawker Media blogs, etc). This is the result of the professionalization and initial maturation of the medium rather than a sign of its death. Sure things like Huffington Post are hardly blogs in the sense that Swarming Media is or might be, but we might see a comparison in a zine that started out with humble ambitions and readership and ends up being distributed across the country in record store. Other zines are out there and still small while some make it big.
I suppose what has faded is the novelty of blogging. It's much harder to gain attention because everyone and their mother's got one (I don't know if you have one, Mom) and people like to pay attention to what's relevant to them and their social circle. That's why the blogs I posted above are indicative of how small-time blogging is alive and thriving despite how hard it is now to attain blog-fame. Blogging isn't a get rich quick scheme anymore, nor should it be - that was always kind of wrong.
As for the other things that I found notable:
This and this are things that give me comfort in an over-crowded, over-hyped web world.
And maybe I've been out of the game too long, but critical theorists need some serious editors.
