Spider and Weblog

Blogging from the family residence today... I'm on another of those weekend visit things.

I can't get enough of this simple little Flash game (found on MetaFilter). Frustrating, difficult to control, but oh so addictive, and I even made the daily high score table - check it out.

But I want to talk at some length about this: The Guardian is giving away a £1000 prize to the weblog judged the Best British Blog. Obviously, I know that a tiny, personal weblog like this would never be in with a chance. But I guess I don't really understand the Guardian's concept of what weblogs are all about. Nowadays whenever weblogs are mentioned in the mainstream media it usually talks about how they're "revolutionising journalism" or something. I think that for the vast majority of weblogs that's absolute rubbish. I don't know of anyone who set up a personal weblog in order to extend traditional journalism, nor do I know of anyone who switched their daily news source from newspapers to weblogs.

Most of the weblogs I've seen are like this one - they're brain dumps. People write stuff that interests them. If people come and read it then that's a bonus, but I'll bet that most webloggers, like myself, do it 80% for their own enjoyment and benefit. Writing down the things on your mind is a fantastic way to organise your thoughts, to justify your opinions, and to gain confidence through expression. This piece is a great example. I'm not writing it for any real audience - I predict that the number of people who read it and are interested in it will be somewhere in the vicinity of zero - but I'm organising my thoughts on this subject, I'm working out exactly what my opinion is and why, and I'm getting a little more practice at writing these opinion piece things, so maybe in the future I'll actually be able to do a good job of them.

I'm not trying to devalue the audiences of weblogs, because they (you) are important too, and when discussion is sparked then everybody can get a wider perspective on the subject at hand. And, of course, everyone enjoys being read - a weblog with visitors is far more satisfactory (I would imagine, hehe). I just think that most of the people who keep weblogs would do so even if nobody visited them. Weblogs aren't journalism any more than a paper diary, kept in a desk drawer, is journalism. Weblogs are just a bit more public.

Someone's going to win £1000 for braindumping. And the winner will be the one who does it in the most consistently eloquent, funny, informative, and well-presented way. Such a weblog definitely sounds like huge fun to read, but it seems odd to me to turn blogging into a competition. Nobody has done this for rewards, not until now. Amongst the people who are in with a real chance, I bet there are a few who have their eye on that money. And now they're going to be motivated by it, trying to make their blog the Best in Britain... no, this competition is definitely a bad idea.