I spent an enjoyable hour or so today talking about blogs in a way I hadn’t really considered before. A TV company are hoping to make a programme or programmes based around Reading (no not the Berkshire town) – and had for some reason asked me to contribute to a ‘taster’ version (I’m, guessing a short non-broadcast pilot to show commissioning types).
I knew it was aimed at children, so went through my Google Reader looking for blogs that might be relevant to kids – some animal nonsense, music and sport mainly – but really thought that I’d be trotting out the usual stuff about democracy, speed, obsessions, the usual “why do people blog?” stuff. Maybe in a slightly more simple way.
It turned out the way the programme is structured is to encourage people to read, and it doesn’t matter what (within some reason I suppose), and so after a very quick introduction I spent time reading from a few favourite blogs (Cute Overload, Oh and Flying Saucer) that might appeal to kids. And then saying “this is what I’m reading in 2008”.
It was an odd experience to think of blogs divorced, almost, from their context and as pieces of writing alone. The two more text based blogs stood up well, CO not such much – although it was fun to say “snorgling” to a TV camera – but I realised that I don’t think of blogs so much as pieces of writing – more as information.
Information that I can get quickly, information that I understand the context of, information from sources I either trust or know exactly how I don’t. There are blogs that I don’t have much interest in subject-wise, but enjoy the writing – Flying Saucer a case in point there – but they’re not what I immediately espouse as the value of the blog.
Just something I found interesting really, and I will ponder more on.
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