Why read blogs? (Part 1)

When I try to imagine the blogosphere, I think of a church service when the pastor told everyone to pray out loud, all at the same time, for the same prayer request.  Our pastor explained that God could listen to all the prayers and sort them out, but for me - an ordinary person surrounded by competing, simultaneous voices - the result was only noise.  I couldn't understand what anybody around me was saying.  Of course, God was the audience, not me, and I was supposed to be praying, not eavesdropping.  The cacophony was so distracting that I couldn't pray.  Afterwards, I decided that I prefer it when people take turns, because I like to listen to what my friends have to say.

i feared that the blogosphere might be like that room filled with people all talking and not listening - a virtual room crowded with writers, but devoid of readers.  Instead, I was greatly encouraged to discover that some people do read blogs, and for good reasons, too.

Many read blogs to be informed and entertained.  In fact, some people read blogs almost (IMHO) obsessively:

I read over 250 blogs regularly, because I find them informative, entertaining and interesting.  I get more diversity of opinion and ideas from those 250 blogs than from reading one or two newspapers; and often you get the chance to learn from real experts in their fields, without the casual mistakes, prejudices and dumbing down that you get when those views are intermediated by lazy journalists (Barder).

 Others read blogs to discover "exciting new websites" (Zuiker).  If you've ever used Google, you have undoubtedly stumbled upon at least one blog entry with cool or bizarre links.  Here are a couple of blogs with information, links or videos I would never have thought of:

Today's Links

Gnome Management in the Garden

The Unfortunate Sex Life of the Banana

Disclaimer:  The opinions expressed in these links are not necessarily those of the management or the author of this blog.

Bibliography

Barder, Owen. "How to Read Blogs [tech for Non-techies 2]." 28 May 2010. Web. 8 Nov. 2010. <http://www.owen.org/blog/3449>.

Zuiker, Anton. "Why Read a Blog." BLOGGING101. 27 Feb. 2004. Web. 8 Nov. 2010. <http://www.unc.edu/~zuiker/blogging101/readwrite.html>.