Musings of OET . . .

You never know . . .

I recently traveled to New York City and while on the plane was perusing the airline magazine. I came across this article about blogging vs twitter vs facebook and thought it was quite interesting.

“One of the defining elements of this magazine is our front section, The Gist. In this department, we lead with posts from the Harvard Business Review and follow those up with selected blogs. We’ve heard a few comments that our idea of printing blogs isn’t all that compelling — they’re passé and have been surpassed by the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Sorry to disagree. Even though they have a similar DNA, each of these exist separately, just as siblings do.

Facebook is a social network for those who are connected for a particular reason — family, friendship, and common interests. Twitter is fine for text messaging anyone who cares to receive your posts, but its most obvious drawback is the 140-character limit.

Here in North Carolina, local writer and blogger Ed Cone (edcone.com) recently wrote an incisive piece on blogging in which he notes, “Blogs give you room to finish a thought and to do so in a domain that is yours alone.” Sure, there are lots of silly, vulgar, uninformed, and self-important blogs out there. The blog universe is a microcosm of human nature — warts and all. But there are many thousands of blogs worth reading, most often created by people with a true passion for their subject. And many of these are coherent, lucid, and informed. They are written by collectors, travelers, political junkies, teachers, doctors, lawyers, musicians, book lovers, and connoisseurs of nearly anything.

Many of these bloggers remain undiscovered, and that’s why we try and ferret out several to print every issue. If you like what you read, bookmark the site and visit again. Most of the higher quality blogs are updated frequently and are worth exploring. And many have links to cousin blogs where you can continue to explore, learn, and be entertained.

Although we abstain from the topics of politics and religion, we’re well aware that there is an enormous number of blogs that cover virtually anything you can think of in terms of these subjects. In terms of politics, one can look back at the influence of blogs in last year’s elections. And on a local level, Ed Cone notes that blogs can force change: “… a public outcry led the mayor and other officials to cancel a trip on a developer’s private plane; that feedback erupted first in blog comments and posts, after news of the trip was broken at a blog.”

Obviously, we’re not in the business of tackling politics or crusading for any issues — it’s not in our purview. But that’s hardly prohibitive: There are hundreds of topics we visit in this magazine without jangling any nerves.  Blogs are here to stay, and those that draw readers grow in influence. They are now a viable form of journalism. And we’re happy to take part.
— Lance Elko, Editor

From “http://www.usairwaysmag.com/articles/in_brief_september_2009/“