I had lunch with friends today (Yum-Cha at Sky Phoenix) and mentioned that I’d started this blog. I was astonished to hear that two of them claimed never to have read a blog! Now I know I spend a lot of time dabbling in all things Web 2.0 and I certainly didn’t expect anyone around the table to be plurking, but surely everyone reads blogs, don’t they? Apparently not. Since I gave strict instructions to everyone around the table to visit the blog (and leave comments, nudge, nudge), it seems like a good opportunity to share my blog-reading habits with these blog novices (and everyone else who may drop by).
Some background first. Blog is an abbreviation of “web log” and the earliest blogs were essentially online diaries, chronicling explorations around the web. Of course there are still plenty of online diaries, but the medium has exploded and now ranges from the personal to the corporate, from mainstream media to the narrowest niches. Collectively they form the blogosphere and here is a potted selection from my Google Reader feeds.
News and Current Affairs
Truthdig – Bob Scheer, a regular on one of my favourite podcasts, Left, Right & Center (LR&C), edits this award-winning left-leaning political blog.
The Huffington Post -is the online home of Ariana Huffington who is something of a blogosphere celebrity. One-time right-winger, she is now more of a centrist and is another regular on LR&C.
SMH News Blog – the Sydney Morning Herald has packaged the offerings of a number of it’s regular columnists in blog form (they are all listed here), while this one assembles brief commentaries on the day’s news from a range of contributors.
Friends and Family
Who is Doctor Dudu? – Within days of launching the Stubborn Mule, my partner (and mother of my children) apparently became tired of proof-reading my blog posts and decided that the best response was to launch her own blog. It’s early days, but there will be more to come, including an explanation of the cryptic title.
Random Rambling – Five years ago, Duncan travelled through Mexico and Cuba. After recently stumbling on the group emails he sent while travelling, he is now in the process of converting them to blog entries.
Pogo A Go-Go – The central theme of FiL’s blog is music, but uses that cover to share what’s going on in his life in Canada.
Productivity
Like many people who spend time online, I have dabbled in the gentle art of Getting Things Done (GTD) and other productivity fads. I even flirted for a while with the Hipster PDA. I am recovering, wit
h a bit of help from the book A Perfect Mess, which comfortingly examines the hidden benefits of disorder. That doesn’t stop me from dipping in to some of the many popular productivity blogs.
Economics & Finance
Freakonomics – This blog is a spin-off of the excellent book of the same name, Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.
Predictably Irrational – I wrote about Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational in my sandwich post. This is his website and blog.
Outside the Box – John Mauldin’s thoughts on world markets.
Odds & Ends
Junk Charts – a blog devoted to the use and abuse of charts. It even featured a discussion of the inflation heatmap I produced for my augural post. You’ll have to read the post if you want to know whether the verdicy was “use” or “abuse”.
Schneier on Security – the legendary author of Applied Cryptography blogs on security and security technology, with a dose of squid every Friday.
and finally, of course:
Boing Boing – a directory of wonderful things.
Possibly Related Posts (automatically generated):
- Why I Always Buy the Same Sandwich (21 May 2008)
- Bedside book pile (17 July 2011)
- Online Data and Charts with Swivel (10 August 2008)
- Gravatars (23 October 2008)
Do you use the share facility on Google Reader ? It’s a good way of recommending posts to your (Google) friends. You can see mine (early days) below. If we were google friends you’d see it automagically in the LH pane of Reader.
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/13801462275460993685
Thank you for taking the time to educate the unwise! Having now been christened into the world of blogs, I feel that I can go forth confidently knowing that I am one tiny step closer to catching up with the rest of the modern world… but I shudder to think what plurking might involve!! Sounds a bit painful really…
Ps. Nice use of “claimed” to have never read a blog =)
@Ange If you do decide to plurk, I’m smc2911 over there. As for the “claimed”, I was thinking about it afterwards and I’m convinced that from time to time you must have at least done a Google search that landed you on a blog post, even if you didn’t realise it!
Love the blog roll, I have just subscribed to a few of them!
Actually, I am surprised that you didn’t mention this excellent blog (about wikis, of course): http://wiki.saikore.com/display/pub/News
@James: That’s shameless self-promotion, but it worked, I’ve added it to my Google reader list.
@Duncan: I’ve started sharing on Google reader and here’s the list so far.
You are one of a kind Sean. How you find time for any work amazes me ;).
Hi Mule. Yours is the only Blog I’ve ever read so I’m afraid I’m with your two lunch friends on this one. “Astonished” is a very punchy word to describe your feelings about this. But, I suppose you could have used flabbergased. By the way, what’s Google?