Saturday, February 25, 2006

Blogs For (and by) UnBloggers 

I don't read many A-list blogs, mostly because the metablogs I do frequent (like BoingBoing) bring the most viral of blogfodder to my attention regardless of origin.

But in the last few weeks, several blogs have emerged which I'd read even if I weren't a blogging infoculture metageek -- blogs new and old kept by folks whose names are generally recognizable on a mass culture level outside the world of the blogosphere.

What follows is nothing comprehensive, just a taste of my subjective bestblogs whose authors are known outside the blogosphere for work done before they were bloggers. No A-listers need apply (sorry, Wil).

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Brand new blogger Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker essayist and author of Blink and The Tipping Point, whose recent "discovery" of power laws introduced the concept to people who have never heard of Clay Shirky.

Douglas Rushkoff, comic artist, culture watcher, and author of businessbook Get Back In The Box: Innovation From The Inside Out.

William Gibson, greatest living science fiction author (sorry, Cory), father of cyberpunk, and coiner of the term cyberspace.

Humorist Dave Barry, who seems to save real writing for his paid gig, uses his Herald-hosted blog almost exclusively for one-liner pass-alongs of the usual web oddities. Comedians that blog more...um...seriously include "comedian to the indie music generation" Eugene Mirman (with thanks to brother Jesse for introducing me to his work) and caustic politico Margaret Cho.

And I suppose no list of blogs-by-the-famous would be complete without some reference to the dozens upon dozens of blogs kept as road-and-recording journals by musicians, from old hands Pete Townsend and David Byrne to poprockers Barenaked Ladies to chart-topping indie darlings Mountain Goats to new blogger MC Hammer. Yes, that MC Hammer. Don't laugh, he can actually write.

posted by boyhowdy | 12:18 PM |

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