Reading Blogs Is a Time-Consuming Endeavor
Commentator David Weinberger takes blogging — and blog-reading — seriously. But he won't read your every word. He couldn't possibly.
ROBERT SIEGEL, Host:
The blogosphere is exploding. It has been for a while. New blogs pop up at the rate of more than 100,000 a day. Commentator David Weinberger reads them. Maybe he's read yours or maybe he hasn't.
DAVID WEINBERGER: I don't know how to put this politely, but I'm not keeping up with your blog. Sorry, I'm just not. So when I see your new car and ask you how you like it, don't look all hurt and tell me, I blogged about the transmission falling out, dude. I didn't read that one. I'm sorry. Actually, I'm not sorry. It's nothing personal. I like you. I'm interested in what you're thinking but there are over 30 million weblogs so far. That's a lot of reading and there are gonna be 50 million at some point--a hundred million. It doesn't matter! A salad bar that's five miles long is as useless to me as one that's 3,000 miles long because I'm getting all the salad I can eat in the first 15 feet.
It's not that I never read your blog. I read it on occasion, intermittently, from time to time. It might be once a week, although it's really probably once a month or three months. And I skim to see what's important in your life and well, to see if you've mentioned my blog. But I still get a sense of what's going on with you. I just don't want to be quizzed on it. And no, please do not post on your blog that I'm disrespecting blogs.
If blog friendship, which I love, is going to last, we simply cannot hold each other accountable for having read every blog post, couldn't possibly. That's the sign of a successive blogs, long may they wave. Tell you what. I hereby officially release you from having to keep up with my blog. I promise I won't act all hurt if you don't know I'm very much opposed to certain international copyright extensions or that my back was acting up a couple of weeks ago or any other tidbit from the over 4,700 entries I've posted over the past four years, and I wish I were kidding.
So, you're free! Not only don't you have to read my blog, you don't even have to pretend you've read it. So, yes, I still read your blog. I love it! I love you! But I'm not poring over your every word and I know you're not poring over mine, so let's just admit it. It's okay. So, what's new?
SIEGEL: David Weinberger is a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for the Internet & Society and if you can find the time you might want to check out NPR's new blog, Mixed Signals. It's at our web site, NPR.org.
Copyright © 2006 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.