CNN interview: Crap? Or Clever?

The more I read the CNN article, the more I think that every last bit of it was deliberately contrived to generate noise among weblogging users. And a quick peek at Daypop and Blogdex only supports this.

If you deconstruct it, the interview is perfectly created to push at least one buzz button within each weblogger, regardless of your interest and type of weblog.

For instance, the following words:

There's another one that actually is way cooler, far more sophisticated and allows you to add all sorts of graphical components and do all sorts of indexing and interesting diagnostic stuff. It's called Radio Userland.

That will guarantee a link on Scripting News.

The fact that the interview only references Pitas and Userland's Radio is going to capture the attention, and ire, of Blogger and Movable Type users. And not referencing Blogger just doesn't make sense -- of the weblogging tools most featured in the mainstream journalism publication articles the last few weeks, Blogger tops the lists.

Also consider the reference to what weblogs are:

What a blog typically is, is a collection of links out to interesting things out on the worldwide Web. The typical format is: link, tiny bit of commentary, and then a pointer to everyone else's commentary. Sounds very simple -- in fact, sounds so simple as to be not even very interesting, but in fact it's incredibly interesting.

The "short blog" vs. "long blog" camps are legion. Is weblogging nothing more than links to stories? Or is weblogging original writing? Or both? Whatever your camp, the above paragraph is incendiary.

Then there's the emphasis about weblogging's relationship with journalism:

It's totally democratic. It's democratic journalism ... it's journalism by the masses.

That line should grab the "weblogging is a new form of journalism" crowd. The Slashdot.com reference is also a grabber; something to hold on to as you shake the article apart.

The only thing missing to make the interview "complete", is a reference to Google.

Add in the overuse of "cool", the pubescent writing and speaking style -- I just can't believe that CNN would allow such inane drivel through the editorial process and on to the web.

I am left with the question: Was this a deliberate hack to generate buzz, as fodder for a more in-depth look at weblogging at a later time?

Regardless, our "one link one vote" approach to discussing the article has effectively pushed it up Daypop's and Blogdex's buzz sheets as one of the top weblogging stories of the day.

Posted by Bb at May 13, 2002 11:02 AM