Why John Dvorak Sucks About Blogging

By Jim on November 21st, 2003

John Dvorak, one of my colleagues at PCMag, is off on another rant about blogs. He seems to have skipped his prune juice this week and the constipation is causing him to write some nasty stuff about blogs again. He couldn’t be more wrong. As a blogger, I completely disagree with his comments.

John’s criticism is based on two things: blogs being abandoned and the blogosphere being corrupted and coopted by what he calls “Big Media.” In his colummn he cites a study by Perseus that supposedly proves that most blogs are quickly abandoned. Unfortunately the study doesn’t at all seem to cover those of us who host our own blogs using Movable Type or other blog software running on our host’s servers. Does Dvorak actually think that the large blog services are the only places people use to host blogs?

That’s absurd. I have not seen any real data that shows a breakdown between the number of blogs on the larger blog services and those hosted by bloggers themselves. The Perseus study should have at least attempted to addressed this issue. Instead there’s a lame disclaimer at the end that just doesn’t cut it.

As far as the issue of readers goes, there’s a very fundamental thing that Dvorak and the Perseus people seem to have missed. People don’t blog to have a hundred thousand readers. They blog because whatever it is they’re blogging about interests them. They want to write about their passions in a medium that easily allows others to read what they write. And most blogs also offer readers the ability to post comments, do trackbacks, etc. It’s not just a one way medium. Blog readers have the opportunity to directly shape the content of the blogs they are reading if the blog owner is willing to let them do so.

Dvorak also harps on professional writers having blogs. Big deal. There’s plenty of room for professionals and non-professionals to blog.

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