I looked at the music thing you mentioned…let’s give her a chance to make something of it although the “cutesy” comment seems pretty appropriate so far.

I agree that it’s tough to describe a blog. But imagine trying to describe a newspaper or magazine–in general, not any particular one–to someone who’s never seen or heard of either. “Well, it’s made of oblongs of paper, and it has stories about all sorts of events, but it’s not a calendar of events, it’s about news, but not just US news, though mostly that, but also international news, as well as human-interest stories, which are interesting stories about humans, and sometimes zoo stories, and it’s full of advertisements, but not on the front page, unless it’s USA Today, and you can write letters to it, and most of them endorse political candidates at some point in the campaign. Oh, and you can get it delivered to your house every morning.”

One of the problems is that I don’t think a lot of folks clearly know what blogs (or podcasts) are yet. I ask students, faculty, friends and family this question pretty often, and some have heard the terms, but many could not define the basic aspects of either if they had to. So, I don’t find it that surprising that a local newspaper editor necessarily knows the difference either.

I have recently seen a good example of a blog from the Baltimore Sun. It is about sports, mainly the Orioles - its title is “Roch Around the Clock” by sportswriter Roch Kubatko. http://blogs.baltimoresun.com/sports_custom_roch/

It has opinions, analysis, comments and an RSS feed.

Nothing bloggy on the Emily Gilmore blog, to my eye, unless the chirpy, superficial content is supposed to, like, OMG, channel some of the I’m-in-my-pajamas feel I’ve seen on some blogs. Not hip or edgy or informed (especially not informed: who knew Queen had written so many songs? please). Just cutesy and lame, and a spectacular (and maybe deliberate) misunderstanding of everything that’s worthwhile in the blogosphere.

It reminds me of some of the cringe-worthy let’s-appeal-to-the-young-people shows of the 1960’s. Or maybe it just reminds me of Ed Sullivan letting his sideburns grow and wearing wider ties.

Pretty hollow, and pretty embarrassing for 2005. Mainstream media will find themselves a drying rivulet if they keep on this way.