December 20, 2004

[Blank] of the Year

President Bush was named Time's Man of the Year. I'm not surprised, and it's a good choice. I just think awarding it to Mel Gibson & Michael Moore would have made for a more interesting issue. I followed the election all year so I'm quite familiar with all the twists and turns that reelected Bush. Reading about Bush's successful past year is "old news" to me.

I won't say too much yet about any weblogs of the year. That will be saved for the TAM Awards later this month. Time named Power Line the "Blog of the Year." [UGH! Why, oh why must they call it a "blog?" It's such an ugly word.] The honor's fitting with their work taking down Dan Rather. I just wonder if some of them are getting a little out of touch with the rest of us in the blogosphere. For instance, John Hindraker, A.K.A. Hindrocket calls the initial post skeptical of the Rather memos "the most famous post in the (short) history of the blogosphere." Then in an AP story--ironic since Power Line's most well-known work before exposing the memos was exposing the anti-GOP lies from the wire service) Hindraker said Power Line only made "a couple thousand bucks a month." Heh, some of us old fogey webloggers haven't made a hundred bucks total in the years we've been posting. This is a "Let them eat cake" moment, but without the arrogance.

If weblogging was anything like a serious business Hindraker's statements would signal that the bubble may soon burst. However, what would it mean for the weblog bubble to burst? Servers wouldn't collapse; keyboards would stop working. At worst, advertisers would stop paying webloggers. A few weblogs would then shut down. The blogosphere would still hang around since most of us write in this medium not for money but for the ability to be read.

"Blog of the Year"