Ever heard of Blogger.com? News and media has taken an incredible liking to it... in short, it allows easy creation and updating of webpages, without having to worry about FTP settings, archiving, HTML, and all that other "look! i'm a webmaster!" crap.

It's also one of the best damn browserware tools that I've run across (in close running to Onepage.com) - I use it for the Disobey News Network, updated semi regularly at Disobey.com. Blogger's run by good, non-corporate, happy little people, who, at face value, seem pretty cool.

There.

Now that I've gotten the calm attention of Blogger lovers with the obligatory and expected admiration, I'd like to tell you why Blogger deserves to have it's little blue and orange neck wrung. Yes, wrung with a fury unbridled by the power of a thousand wild horses.

Take with me a trip back into the stone ages - years and years ago when the Internet was relatively new. It was a great frontier, one of exploration, "ooh, how original" and "man, this is far better than BBS's".

Except, of course, when you got to one of *those* pages.

Yes, those worthless waste's of bandwidth where desperate and self-indulgent people would shove pictures of their dog down your saturated pipe, or little Mickey in his "cutest outfit yet", or the equivalent of endless slide shows about their most treasured vacation.

These magical pages were the dirge of the Internet - everyone hated them, everyone complained, everyone thought they were horrible. This wasn't "content" - this was a shameless use of resources by people who should've been "Logan's Run"'d years before.

Years later, the pages disappeared from public view - sure, you can find them by looking at any local ISP's homepage list, but they're no longer prominent - you have to search to find 'em. That's how things should be.

Fast forward. We're near the present. The desire for content moved toward the desire for content aggregation, or "portals". Those died. Then we moved to "push technology", where piss-rich content was considered the rage because it came to you without asking. And nowadays, content has been neglected in favor of "services" - sites which allow you to accomplish some task besides just passively reading.

Blogger is a service - one that helps in making content. It wasn't the first on the block for this sort of web updating, but was certainly the most user-friendly, relational, and the best looking.

And that's where the hate comes in. Gazillions of new users are using Blogger to update the most horrific and content poor pages I've ever seen. Don't get me wrong - there are some really good "blogs" out there, but most are pointless wastes of time, replacing dog pictures with the color of the moron's underwear, and why that relates to this link about cock soup and America's national pasttime.

These furry-assed apes will wax poetic for whole screens about their pointless lifestyle, their boring family, and then include a link or two to spice things up. And because they read other blogs, you'll often see "via trails" all over, where they'll link or mention something and tack on "[via BobaFett's Super Blog Wars]". As if I'm suppose to care that you get inspiration for your shit inducer from someone else's skidmark maker. Because cross-linking like this is so prevalent, if you read about a dozen, you'll have covered about fifty.

Did I mention Blog Wars? [tweety] I did, I did mention Blog Wars! [/tweety]. As a side effect of so many blogs being created and maintained, there are sites that count and measure the number of posts per day. Post thirty times in an hour? Top of the class, buckaroo! Linked to the same website that twelve other people did? You must be popular culture! What'd you write about? Depression? The fact that your cat wouldn't lick your balls? The fact that he still wouldn't after you rubbed tuna on them? Does anyone but you care?

Ah, but see, that's the rub - it's not about creating good content, its about creating ENOUGH content so that people will look at it, thinking you have something important to say. And with blog wars, blog voting, and "via trails", it's no longer about WHAT you have to say, but rather HOW MANY people are listening.

Welcome back to the world of *those* pages. Hang your head in shame - the more press Blogger get's, the more idiocy we'll see. It's not an issue of when, but rather how much longer before those who encouraged it with stories of Blogger, will about-face and relabel it the same pig testicles they reported years and years ago.

NOTE TO READERS: This article has nothing to do with the semantic web, about bringing a voice to the masses, or empowering those who have something to say but not the knowledge to say it. Nor is it about self-expression or online diaries. If you put something up on a public webserver, someone is going to read it. Search engines will waste their time caching it. If it's useless, you're wasting resources. The Internet is full. Go away.

<< last issue

plain text format


Devil Shat is published by Disobey & is protected under all copyright laws.
Devil Shat Seventy was released on 01/11/01. Last updated: 01/11/01.