An interesting debate is taking place in comments to my last post on BurrellesLuce. David Scott Lewis said …
“Frankly, I’m surprised BaconsLuce found 1,000 blogs worthy of monitoring!! I think it’s important that we take a step back every so often and stop viewing the world through rose-colored glasses.
For the most part, blogs — as information sources — are irrelevant. It’s great to receive blogs published by friends and family. That’s personal. And VERY relevant. But bloggers who think they are replacing or even supplementing the Fourth Estate are kidding themselves.”
Robert Scoble commented back ….
“I’m monitoring nearly 1,300 blogs. I share that clipping with everyone for free at http://www.scobleizer.com
Oh, and David, I totally disagree with you. I’ve found 1,300 blogs that are very high quality. I find them invaluable for bringing me new things and new ideas.”
David then issued a challenge to Scoble…
I suspect that you’d get a lot more ideas from reading printed trade magazines than from blogs….Try an experiment. Here’s my challenge to you (and it applies to Steve as well): Read 100 trades versus 1,300 blogs…. Do you still really think that you’ll get more valuable insights from blogs?
~~ Snip ~~
Robert, maybe for your job and in your specific role, blogs are better. But for most of us, printed trades are still all the rage. I’d even challenge the folks like John Battelle who think the Wall Street Journal is becoming irrelevant.”
Them fighting words! Will Scoble take the challenge? I doubt it. For one, I know he will miss his blogs. More importantly, I bet Scoble read the trades religiously in ye olde days but he now favors blogs because he can consume far more relevant information faster than ever before thanks to RSS.
As for me, I tried the inverse experiment already and found that blogs enabled me stay up to date on current events nearly as well as the mainstream media. Is anyone willing to give up blogs for mags? I don’t think it’s really an either/or situation. I find myself needing and reading both.
Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.
He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.
