Bashing Blogs

TOM SYKES JOINS ANDREW KEEN in his disdain for amateur journalism, pointing to "Wired which carries, in its most recent issue, an obituary of the blog." Sykes is an "inky-fingered newsprint" reader and he revels in the thought that blogging is dead. "Thank goodness for that," he writes in the Irish Examiner.

"Wired says the death of the blog has come about because the amateurs who were originally given a voice by the medium, to post tales both quirky and mundane from the frontline of human existence, have been replaced by 'a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths.'

"While this may be the reason that geeks have stopped reading blogs, I suspect the reason the average reader has quit is a bit simpler: they're rubbish." On this note, both Tom Sykes and Andrew Keen would share a chair on the stage of the Irish Arts Council's New Media Conference. Keen is recognisable as an ultimate blogging cynic. Sykes is more a local boy, relegated to "The Last Word" in the Monday morning edition of the Irish Examiner. The Irish Arts Council will pay Keen to fly over from London for his viewpoints but I don't think more than one person from County Cork will be paid to travel up to Dublin address the Arts Council's New Media Conference next month in Dublin Castle. If the idea of trekking to Dublin doesn't float your boat, you might enjoy reading over tweets from ect08, an event that caused me to think about effective uses of social media.

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Irish Arts Council -- New Media Conference on Tuesday 25 November in the Dublin Castle, site of a few of my most-favourite images on Flickr.
Annette Clancy -- "New Media New Audience"
Andrew Keen -- Author of The Cult of the Amateur ISBN 978-0385520812
Tom Sykes vented his happiness in "The Last Word" column in the inky print edition of the Irish Examiner, 27 Oct 08.

Set your GPS for Castle Street, Dublin, Ireland: 53.343, -6.2676 which happens to be PON Code MT9 3HT.

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