Hey, I've long since specifically resisted creating my own blog. Comments are important. They turn it from a monologue in a potentially empty echo chamber to a dialogue in public.

That said, I don't grasp blogs with a comment string of 200-300 or even more entries (LGF as an obvious case). Who the hell reads that far down? I see that many comments I generally put my commenting time in elsewhere... like in a place with a very limited comment stream.

Yeah, I know that the entries at someplace like LGF are a more active stream, people writing then reading what others wrote back and responding. But that still means that if you aren't paying attention when the thread gets posted, you pretty much aren't part of the conversation. Tossing something into the middle of that is like walking up to a large group at a party, and interjecting an opinion within 2 minutes before you've even heard much of the discussion.

Better to spend your time commenting elsewhere that can use the attention and interaction. Like here. Or here. Or here. Or here.

And therein lies the answer, BTW -- I think the rumors of its death have been vastly exaggerated -- the so-called "blogs" which he mentions as "most visited aren't blogs in any sense of the word's meaning -- they are corporate news and opinion aggregation sites -- These existed before blogs, and they still exist.

Blogs don't compete with them.

They enhance them. They provide a "distant early warning" of news entries. They allow one to expand one's own vision to include areas not immediately visible, as the blogger acts as an editor for interesting pieces, news items, and thoughtful responses.

When Frank writes a rant, it's one of the best damned rants you're going to find on that topic.

When Carl fisks a piece, that thing is fisked to the bone.

And when Bill writes an essay, you know that topic is covered better than just about anyone else would.

Technorati has lost sight of what a blog is, which is why their . "Huffpo" isn't a flinkin' blog any more than Town Hall is. And if it lists EITHER of those as blogs, that's flat-out ludicrous. Corporate sites don't represent a single person's vision -- never have, never will. How many of the comments in responses to entries on Huffpo or TH include response-comments by the original piece author? Right -- not many. These aren't blogs because there's no real indication that the responses to the editorials in question have any effect on the author.

No, Frank doesn't respond a lot, but there IS adequate evidence that he READS them.

Boortz's site is the closest thing to a straddle. It's still mostly him and his views, even though his salary is paid for by his radio station and speaking engagements. And it's clear in many cases that he does personally respond to reader comments and feedback, if not in person then through subsequent entries and commentary.

A blog isn't a corporate-organized soapbox. It's a community dialogue. And the "blogosphere" is the collection of those communities. And I'm not certain it's not waning, but it's far from dead. There were a lot of comments made on the poliblogs this time around.

I'm curious what effect Facebook and MySpace are having on it. I know the local city used that mechanism to get the passage of a long resisted city expansion edict, by reaching out to students living in that area in this last election. How can this be used to elicit action by users? To express a position to users? This is either in contraposition to or in extention of the mechanisms of blogs. Blogs are less transient, and more permanent, than something like FB or MS. Is that good or bad? When making a point, if someone else has done it better before me, I've used such information to argue my point via a link, rather than to re-express it, if the original writer did as good a job, or better, than I can.

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