Ok, I'm being lazy today. Time Magazine released a list of the best blogs. While this is sort of like getting advice on the automotive industry from a Saturn manager, it is nevertheless interesting to see what Time regards as the "Best". Most of the blogs listed are the usual suspects (The Awl, Boing Boing, Engadget, The Sartorialist, Kottke.org), so it's not a particularly useful list for finding new and exciting things (which is not to say that blogs like Boing Boing do not introduce the new and the exciting).
What's ironic, of course, is that Time - the most mainstream of mainstream magazines - list features the most mainstream of mainstream blogs.
Perhaps more interesting is how broad the definition of blog has become. I mean, is Pitchfork really a blog? Wouldn't some other designation, like Webzine be better for it? It does publish daily and presumably it is powered by a blogging software (like Wordpress or some variant). It does not adhere to the traditional "most recent first format". Moreover, the content on a blog like Pitchfork is more enduring that the varia presented daily at one of my favorite blogs, Kottke.org, or a tech blog like Engadget.
In any event, the increasing flexibility of what the mass media imagines to be a blog (wait, maybe, Time magazine is just a blog too!) can only be good news for those of us who use the blog format for somewhat more serious (or at least somewhat less random) pursuits...
Here are the lists:
Best Blogs (the links are to Time's critique of the blogs, not to the blogs themselves): Zenhabits, PostSecret, Climate Progress, HiLobrow, Hipster Runoff, Kottke.org, Cake Wrecks, The Oatmeal, S___ My Kids Ruined, Deadline Hollywood, Everything Everywhere, The Sartorialist, Information Is Beautiful, The Daily Kitten, Shorpy, Apartment Therapy, Double X, Strobist, Roger Ebert's Journal, The Awl, GeekDad, Engadget, The Washington Note, The Consumerist, Pitchfork
Essential Blogs: The Daily Wh.at, TechCrunch, Gawker, Politico's Ben Smith, Boing Boing
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