Once upon a time there were three friends who came home from BloggerCon.
The first friend posted, “That was so amazing–I can hardly wait to do more stuff with my weblog! Weblogs are going to promote collaboration and creativity in schools, in politics, in journalism, in business–and some of us will make barrels and barrels of money.”
The second friend posted, “Who falls for that hype? I mean, hello, does anyone remember hearing all those same promises during the dot-com boom? No thanks, I’m not getting fooled again.”
The third friend took a few minutes off from making funny pictures of people at BloggerCon to read her friend’s blogs and was dismayed by the idea that she was supposed to believe one or the other, though she had to admit either would be more consistent than what she really believed–both sides at once.
Which is not to claim that the third point of view is better–Einstein knew that light is both a particle and a wave, and that didn’t mean he could find the bathroom light switch.
And the moral of this story is: You can fall off a bike by leaning too far to one side or the other, but to get somewhere you have to forget about falling and pedal like hell.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Lisa Williams // Oct 6, 2003 at 7:37 am
hah! ha!
2 jeneane // Oct 6, 2003 at 7:53 am
Now THIS is wonderful!
3 The Children's Liberation Front (actually, Yule) // Oct 6, 2003 at 7:54 am
Good one! (PS You mean E. “didn’t – couldn’t” not “didn’t – could”?)
4 enoch // Oct 6, 2003 at 8:36 am
;)
5 Dave Winer // Oct 6, 2003 at 10:21 am
Betsy, it’s so funny because blogs were going strong all through the dot-com mania. We thought we were working on the “real” web, while the world went crazy. It’s so funny that people think this is a mania. If so, it’s been a mania that has been brewing for a loonnnnng time.
“jfk”
6 Niek Hockx // Oct 6, 2003 at 1:44 pm
Of course you need to have a decent bike first to be able to pedal at all. If a tire comes off spontaneously all the time or if a pedal breaks in half for no reason during the ride, you can seriously hurt yourself, even when you are a good biker. I should know, I’m from Holland… ;-)
The serious bike-geek will lick his wounds and starts trying to repair the bike himself, because he likes it. But most people just want a bike as means of transportation, to get them somewhere and when a buggy bike falls apart all the time they go looking for a another solution to get from A to B. If there are no good bikes available they will take the bus or just walk. If you are lucky. They also may give up altogether, just stay where they are and use the Internet… ;-)
7 Frank Paynter // Oct 6, 2003 at 8:37 pm
Great posts Betsy. I finally got home, fed the dog, had dinner, and now I’m off to bed, but I had to read your blog first!
Frank
8 Elayne Riggs // Oct 7, 2003 at 9:48 am
Making money from blogging? Geez, it’s just a hobby, folks, get a grip. :)
9 Betsy Devine // Oct 7, 2003 at 7:06 pm
Check out Niek for more comment and gorgeous photo.
10 Amy Wohl // Oct 9, 2003 at 10:35 am
Betsy, I think the strength of blogging is in its diversity — of interests, of passions, of points of view — and in how we think we want to use blogs. I met people with blogs so different from mine, or the ones I’m accustomed to reading, that I scarcely recognize them as blogs — but they (the people and their blogs) are simply sensational. The Internet is a disruptive technology that changes everything and one of the things it changes is whom we can communicate with and how we can communicate with them. I say hooray!
Amy
11 Betsy Devine // Oct 9, 2003 at 11:17 am
Amy, I love what you said about blogging in your Metablog: “There is something delicious going on here and once you dip into the soup I think exiling yourself may not be possible.” Please don’t stay in the blog soup with us–I just barely met you at BloggerCon and now I want to get to know you better….