Weblogs and CB Radio - Love is a better master than duty

Michael Gartenberg | October 17, 2003, 08:05 AM

There’s a lot of flack going on over the interview John Markoff gave to the OJR. Jeff Jarvis has comments here, Elizabeth Spiers has comments here.

Markoff said "it's not clear yet whether blogging is anything more than CB radio... And, you know, give it five or 10 years and see if any institutions emerge out of it. It's possible that in the end there may be some small subset of people who find a livelihood out of it and that the rest of the people will find that, you know, keeping their diaries online is not the most useful thing to with their time."

It’s funny watching people say things who should know better. Thomas Watson Sr. once said that he thought there was worldwide market for perhaps five computers. Back in the 90s when I was an analyst at Gartner, one of my colleagues at the time referred to the entire Internet in a research note as a “passing fad, the CB radio of the 90s”. He was wrong too.

As someone that has covered the tech industry from the earliest days of the PC, John should know better than to be so dismissive of something, so early on in it’s life cycle. I still read the NY Times (although not as often as I used to). I also read a lot weblogs, since they offer a perspective and depth that I can’t get elsewhere. I certainly can’t get it at the times. I write a lot for a living. As an analyst, as a columnist for Computerworld and also as weblogger. They all serve different audiences and different needs. The fact that there are people who do not write professionally does not mean that they do not have a voice or lack opinions or expertise that others want to hear. Einstein once said “Love is a better master than duty”. He might have been referring to weblogs.