Carl Bialik, writer of the Wall Street Journal’s The Numbers Guy column, and its blogger liason, is getting around. He’s being widely quoted as an expert on blogs, even though he doesn’t have one.
MyrtleBeachOnline.com ran a Sunday article quoting Bialik’s May 26 column which said that it’s not the number of blogs in the world that matters, but rather the number of items posted by bloggers.
And then there is this strange line: “In any event, blog readership appears small compared with well-known Web sites.” Huh? That’s an apple and an orange and it adds up to nonsense. “Very few individual blogs have a significant number of readers,” Bialik wrote. Of course he also wrote about 3000 other words on the topic in the same column, but I guess the Mrytle Beach writer isn’t big into reading about blogs.
Since the Journal is an expensive subscription, and since bloggers routinely linked to stories through their own subs, the Journal decided to join us instead of trying to beat us. Bialik has been doing a good job of staying in touch with bloggers, sending us free links to Journal stories that match our interests, which he asked us about a couple of weeks ago. Now I guess the Journal is doing a PR campaign on Bialik as a blog expert.
Carl Bialik of Wall St Journal Widely Quoted on Blogging Even Though He Doesn’t Blog
BL Ochman | May 30, 2005 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) | TrackBack (
Warning: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable in /home/gnp0fnhzxcgi/domains/whatsnextblog.com/html/wp/wp-content/themes/WNO2/single.php on line 32
0)
Warning: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable in /home/gnp0fnhzxcgi/domains/whatsnextblog.com/html/wp/wp-content/themes/WNO2/single.php on line 32
0)
Bialik a blog expert?
That’s funny. I called him totally clueless about blogs and journalistic practice.
His WSJ article you cite is loaded with errors and laziness.
Doc Searls, Evan Williams, John C. Dvorak, and many others agree with me, have posted comments on my post about this article, and have even written posts about my “rebuttal” or “dismissal” of this very dubious WSJ article.
http://vaspersthegrate.blogspot.com/2005/05/
wall-street-journal-still-in-dark.html
“Wall Street Journal Still in the Dark About Blogs”.
Actually, Bialik does blog, for Gelf Magazine, found here. Call it what you wish, but as we know that a blog can be defined by its publishing tools (Gelf uses Movable Type), features like RSS, and (typically) reverse chronological order of posts, I’ll give Gelf blog status =)
Check out their work researching Michelle Delio’s source “issues” at Wired, too.