Bloggers, The Great Unread

Nicholas Carr has an excellent post about the nature of the blogosphere that's generating lots of discussion.  Excerpt:

An innocent fraud is a lie, but it's a lie that's more white than black. It's a lie that makes most everyone happy. It suits the purposes of the powerful because it masks the full extent of their power, and it suits the purposes of the powerless because it masks the full extent of their powerlessness.

What we tell ourselves about the blogosphere - that it's open and democratic and egalitarian, that it stands in contrast and in opposition to the controlled and controlling mass media - is an innocent fraud.

Link: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: The Great Unread,

via Michael Zimmer.

There seems to be a convergence of blogger crises-of-confidence lately, or maybe it's just coincidence that I'm seeing many posts recently about how lonely the blogosphere can be.  See also this comic (via Matthias Klang), and the many links in Nicholas Carr's above post and the accompanying comments.