USA Today, Ever Helpful

Hey! The McPaper says that political web logs are really influential! On the front page, USA Today reports that there's a "new class of political arbiters" who "call themselves bloggers." Luckily, USA Today explains what bloggers are to the millions of business travelers who pick up the paper from outside their hotel room door:

Bloggers get their name from Web logs, a new form of publication on the Internet. A blog is a cross between an online diary and a cybermagazine, aggressively updated to draw readers back. Just a few years ago, blogs were relatively rare. Now there are millions. They're devoted to every topic imaginable, from knitting to dating to homelessness. But those who have had the most impact write about politics.

USA Todays claims their readers are tech savvy. As Triumph would say, Gothamist poops on your "tech savvy" readers, USA Today.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in Arts and Events on December 30, 2003 12:05 PM

Comments [rss]

anonymama

i used to work at mcpaper and am all too familiar with those indices about how 'tech-savvy' the readers are. puh-leez.

Hoofin

Yeah, the focus was more on the impact on politics. I don't know why these people would be so surprised---it's just a step away from talk radio, which was 1994's big "new thing."

Jeff Jarvis actually had some praise for my hyper-local site last summer. It's a lot tougher to write about very local issues though---whatever the Bible had to say about being a savant in your own hometown. The jealous people and the political opposition come out of the woodwork (or out from under the rocks).

Far suburbia doesn't exist unless a sufficient number of people are kept stupid. So I gotta see more blogs out here before I am convinced that blogging isn't anything more than a national/big city fad.

Editor

Guess this means the NY Times Magazine will be doing a cover story on blogs any day now.

Jen

Yeah, I know, same with many others. But USA Today is so amusingly earnest in its descripton...

Felix

Hey, I have a very good friend, a New Yorker, who has known me since long before I started blogging years ago, and who is definitely tech-savvy -- she's even married to a bona fide computer geek. And she still has no idea what a blog is. Now that she knows that people leave comments on blogs, she's come to the conclusion that blogs are basically bulletin boards.