http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003956.html

Shefaly: Social Media and Web 2.0 are slightly different. Google Spreadsheets and Writely aren’t Social Media, imho. Blogs are a part of Social Media, and our conversation was more about the social networking type portals, though we did talk about blogs…

1. Single issue blogs get caught up with their own ideologies quickly and become thinly veiled lobbyists rather than anchors of conversations.

I see nothing wrong with that. If they’re caught up in their own ideologies, then that is usually obvious, and they run the risk of being ignored. Blogs are a medium for free expression, and if an individual tows a specific line - that’s his/her choice. There’s always the opportunity then, for someone to do a better job.

2. Most bloggers are too arrogant about conversing. They make a post then never appear again in the comments/ conversation, never acknowledging/ challenging/ questioning/ feeding or damping the debate. I can name some that I read in India but I could also tell you offline.

Online or offline…that’s very true of many. At the same time, the popular ones are constrained by time. I know how difficult it is to answer each and every email, and then respond to comments, AND work every day. I’ve had to minimise responding to comments on contentsutra, because it was hindering work. I do my best to facilitate a discussion, though. Y’know - I’d mentioned Youth Curry as a blog that I do not enjoy reading (apart from the fact that I don’t think that the content is great)…Rashmi doesn’t (from when I last checked) respond to comments.

3. Bloggers who moderate almost never put up comments that disagree with their position. Amongst US blogs I read, this is less rampant, but in India this is the default position. Considering we like to think of ourselves as discourse-driven (well Amartya Sen does anyway), what is this tendency to stifle debate/ feedback?

I’m not too sure of this. Only a few blogs where I comment regularly have comment moderation, and my comments have never been moderated…Incidentally, I’ve started moderating some comments here, but only of the ‘Hey! Nice post. do see my blog at ….” type. They add nothing to the conversation, and all this blog pimping is getting to me.

4. Many popular blogs are childishly written (popularity could be due to any number of reasons), poorly edited for spelling and grammar, and do to much self-referencing. I fail to understand why. Are quality standards of individuals so low? Do they really not know how to spell? Do they never stop picking their own navel-fluff and look around?

Again - it takes all kinds to make the blogosphere, and I wouldn’t have it otherwise. I don’t read blogs with grammatical errors or verbosity. I think Indianeconomy.org is unfortunately verbose. I don’t have issues with self-referencing…I’d hate for a blog to be newspaper-like.

Nice post. Enjoy!

I see a few other issues with social media/ web 2.0/ whatever jargon you subscribe to:

1. Single issue blogs get caught up with their own ideologies quickly and become thinly veiled lobbyists rather than anchors of conversations.

2. Most bloggers are too arrogant about conversing. They make a post then never appear again in the comments/ conversation, never acknowledging/ challenging/ questioning/ feeding or damping the debate. I can name some that I read in India but I could also tell you offline.

3. Bloggers who moderate almost never put up comments that disagree with their position. Amongst US blogs I read, this is less rampant, but in India this is the default position. Considering we like to think of ourselves as discourse-driven (well Amartya Sen does anyway), what is this tendency to stifle debate/ feedback?

4. Many popular blogs are childishly written (popularity could be due to any number of reasons), poorly edited for spelling and grammar, and do to much self-referencing. I fail to understand why. Are quality standards of individuals so low? Do they really not know how to spell? Do they never stop picking their own navel-fluff and look around?

What do you think? Did these themes emerge in your conversation?

Later..

(I was once Pre! :) )