http://www.clubtroppo.com.au/2006/12/11/the-best-australian-essays-2006-a-review/#comment-69554

I will say though that outside the chronicling hypertextual context-rich environment, blog posts tend to lose that magical and rich interconnectedness. This was brought home to me reading the book version of the Riverbend blog – still an incredible document but lacking some things particular to the online version.

And as P.Cat says, the graphical element is an essential part of the whole blog genre. I agree with Phil that David’s post about his hospital experiences was quite amazing and would effortlessly stand up to any Australian essay I’ve read elsewhere this year, but David’s blog is also a very good example of what can be done via the interplay of words and images, and to reprint his post without the accompanying oblique commentary of the image he chose to go with it would definitely be a reduction.

Yep, that pretty much nails it.

Dr. Cat: “It is indeed a new genre, and a quite different one, for all those reasons…”

Well, very strictly speaking, it’s not a *new* genre, as anyone who’s ever worked in an institution with a Common Book can tell you… even the serial graffiti on Roman bath-house walls is something of a precedent… but the combination of genre with improved and lightning-quick technology is indeed something new on the face of the earth, that’s fer sure.

“the Vegemite is the images (still and moving), sound files and other links… I like blogging mainly because I can do things with it that it’s not possible to do on an ordinary page — including get almost instant readers and feedback.”

I remember talking to a prominent computer theorist a long pre-internet time ago, and he said that something they were always thinking about was, how can you get to a point where instead of using a computer as a glorified calculator-slash-typewriter, you can *play* it like a musical instrument. Maybe this is sort of what he had in mind (links as chords?). Or at least, the start of it. Where it’ll all end, well…

All kinds of factors go into putting anthologies together. Don’t hold Drusilla completely responsible for the contents, as she may not have had the final say.

A publication or anthology of blog-output without the comments would not be the total representation of blogs. Sure there are posts that are the equal of the best mag writing, but the bread and butter of blogs is the conversation. It’s the hammering out, the cut and thrust, the communal embroidery of an idea that makes blogs fecund. Long interchanges with numerous voices could give a feel for the times and context surrounding an issue. The competing views. What was contested, what was deemed off limits and what was merely laughable.

The essay is the lone wolf. I think the numerous mags and newspapers already covers that pretty much. (Not to say that the main point here isn’t valid.)

But blogs have created a new genre.