Blogs: Tamagotchis or parasites?
A friend of mine – Der Rüdnitzer - recently offered the idea that Blogs are Tamagotchis – they breed, chat and sleep. And they need feeding. Obviously the idea was fruitful: already a large number of other bloggers have subscribed to this idea, for instance Robert Basic, KBlog, Vanina DeLobelle,or Fukkle Bim Jerry.
However I would like to offer an alternative idea: Blogs are nothing more than parasites – creatures that live on the blogger’s time, the blog-reader’s time. They devour other blogs, often do not contain content of their own, instead feast on what other contents, other sites, other real people have to offer.
The definition from Wikipedia seems to be quite appropriate (My own comments are in bold):
Parasitism is one version of symbiosis (“living together”), a phenomenon in which two organisms which are phylogenetically unrelated co-exist over a prolonged period of time, usually their entire life (what else is a blog?). The requirement for a prolonged interaction precludes predatory or episodic interactions (such as a mosquito feeding on a host -or trackbacks, pings), which are usually not seen as symbiotic relationships. Symbiosis encompasses commensalism (“eating at the same table”, wherein two organisms co-exist in the same space, and one organism benefits while neither harming nor helping the other - or covering the same topic), through mutualism (wherein both species benefit from the interaction - or linking to each other) to parasitism, wherein one organism, usually physically smaller of the two (the parasite) benefits and the other (the host) is harmed - like stealing ideas, content and traffic from each other.
Update from November 2nd: This article discusses whether search engines are parasites.
See as well: HowardOwens, SearchEngineWatch, Roughtype, FreeLanceDaily, OJR, DeepJiveInterests, Webomatica, TheGazette, Citmedia.
Oktober 30th, 2006 at 01:39
Die Schattenseiten des Bloggens…
Gerade habe ich einen Trackback zu meinem Artikel Weblogs sind wie Tamagotchis erhalten. In dem Artikel von Juni habe ich Weblogs mit Tamagotchis verglichen: Vor ein paar Jahren kam ein elektronisches Spielzeug namens Tamagotchi auf den Markt. [...] Di…
Oktober 30th, 2006 at 14:26
Thank you for pointing me out other thinking the same as me!
November 1st, 2006 at 02:22
[...] In a recent article I wrote about Blogs, Tamagotchis and Parasites referring to an idea by the Rüdnitzer. Later that night I received a trackback from the kgblog mentioning that he came across the same idea already in June. [...]
November 1st, 2006 at 02:50
[...] One more time the Tamagotchi-Issue. Please recall: by mistake I pointed out that the Rüdnitzer was the only source of the Blogs and Tamagotchi comparison – but indeed other people (like kgblog, Teddykrieger, Robert Basic, Vanina DeLobelle,or Fukkle Bim Jerry) have mentioned the idea as well. Sometimes ideas evolve parallel – and this is even more true for blog ideas. [...]
Februar 7th, 2007 at 17:47
Blogs/bloggers in general are parasites who are choking the internet with USELESS information, they (blogs) are SPAM which have become a waste of bandwith. the thing i hate the most about them is that everytime i google stuff i come across some parasitic blog, instead of geniune factual information, their a waste of space and will be the downfall of the internet.
Oktober 10th, 2007 at 00:37
[...] more time the Tamagotchi-Issue. Please recall: by mistake I pointed out that the Rüdnitzer was the only source of the Blogs and [...]
Oktober 10th, 2007 at 00:38
[...] a recent article I wrote about Blogs, Tamagotchis and Parasites referring to an idea by the Rüdnitzer. Later that night I received a trackback from the kgblog [...]