a word about blog you!
Ed Champion over at Blog You! finally noticed the tinyblog review thing and sent me a really nice, sincere Email explaining what they were trying to do at Blog You! and all that, and then wrote a snotty little side bar linking me in typical Blog You! form. I guess they're like Howard Stern, who insists that his public persona doesn't have anything to do with what they do in real life. They also said they would review the tinyblog when they got around to it. I wait with baited breath.
In any case, I thought I would just say a coupla things since I'm really the one who invited comparison between my reviews, and theirs. For one thing, after having spent a bunch more time looking at Blog You! I can tell you that I now understand the joke a little better, and am glad the site exists (for which I'm sure Tom and Ed are breathing a great sigh of relief).
However, Ed's explination that Blog You! is a poking fun at the form of a weblog, and sort of debunking it as a sacred medium (in his Email, which I am mostly paraphrasing) doesn't quite fly with me. He said that it's sort of "part of the joke" that they don't read any weblog very thoroughly, but then says that, hey, if they pulled any punches, then it would fall into the same insipid trap as any other blog *cough*.
I guess I'm just sensitive, but the idea of it not mattering whos feelings are hurt in the noble pursuit of truth just seems awfully suspect for two guys who use a "donald sutherland" rating system. I guess it just cheesed me when they reviewed Shauna so superficially, when I feel like if they would have read any ten posts they wouldn't have had to pull any punches to see that her weblog is one of the funniest and most unpretentious on the planet.
Granted, there's over 100,000 weblogs on Blogger alone, and certainly a lot of Ego. I don't deny that the form could be poked fun at... but I'm one for going easy on the little guy. I'm also one for giving credit where credit is due. Blogging is a diificult thing to do with pinache day in and day out. Somtimes 5 or 10 posts in a row are going to be average, but if 60% or so of a blog's posts are really good, I consider that outstanding. I'm sure that I could find weblogs that I could really give a hard time, but for the most part, I LIKE blogs, and the ones I'm reviewing (the ones on my sidebar, although I'm starting to get a handful of requests) are blogs I really love. I don't see any sort of betrayal of truth by pointing out the best of a blog, eh?
Blog You!'s intention is to seperate the wheat from the chaff, and so is mine.