One of the things that bloggers do when a big event is coming up
that just needs to be covered LIVE (the state
of the union address, the inauguration,
the
superbowl halftime show, etc.) is to announce months in advance
that you should come back to their site while the event is happening
for LIVE stream-of-consciousness posts direct the blogger, AS IT
HAPPENS. They call this Live-blogging, and lord is it stupid.
First and foremost, how unintelligent do you need to? have to be to feel
the need to be told what to think about an event as it freakin
happens? Why don't you sit on your ass and watch the state of
the union speech, form your own opinions, and THEN log on to see
what sort of witty banter you should use at the proverbial water
cooler the next day, moron!? Bloggers who liveblog are lame enough,
but it's the readers who tune in to witness it are the ones who
really need a good kick in the pantaloons.
Secondly, blog "technology", if it can be called technology (thus
the sarcastic use of quotes around the word "technology"), is such a
throwback to early days of the internet, that it is completely
unsuitable to live-blogging. I mean really, blogs are just simple
single-author guestbooks that write to a file when the blogger posts
something, and reads from it when a visitor hits it. I was doing
that sort of shit back in 1989 using perl and lynx for christssakes.
Liveblogging isn't even really fucking LIVE since the blogger needs
to keep submitting their entry every few minutes, and readers need
to sit there hitting reload waiting for the next pearl of wisdom to
be published. The blogger then has to go back, edit their liveblog
entry, then submit it again the next time they poop out a "live"
comment. And all the while the poor web server, which is already
depressed enough from hosting a blog, is being hammered by everyone
hitting reload. Man is it stupid.
You know what would be great for Live-blogging? A CHAT ROOM!
That's right, amazingly enough, there exists an internet technology
that allows people to chat IN REAL TIME. It is a cutting edge
technology still in rudimentary form, however, since it has only
been in existence SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE GODDAMNED INTERNET.
Using chat rooms for live-blogging could also enable -- horrors of
horrors -- other people to actually converse with the blogger while
they're blogging! Just imagine it!
Of course this idea would never work because chat rooms are so
OVER, and only DORKS converse in CHAT ROOMS, and CHATTING would not
be BLOGGING even though it'd be like a thousands times better and
more useful and actually WORK.
In conclusion, just keep sitting there hitting reload while you
watch the Superbowl, waiting to be told what to think.
Douches.
