My blog tends to be fairly similar to the complaint BlogYou had of Null Device, "he's just copying links from [website] and commenting on them". Call me stupid but I've thought that was the point all along? Personal commentary on topics with links. Links I find interesting. Topics I find interesting. And a smidgen of stuff on myself...
I do tend to copy a lot of links from other sites, but these are topics I'm interested in. I use this blog as almost a bookmark file for myself. I hope to one day go through my blog and read stuff I've linked to, stuff I've said. It's such a strange comment. It's not like we're (bloggers) are journalists are we?
I try to indicate the source of a link/story but a quick look back shows I havn't been. In the case of stealing the link from a blog I'm usually fairly good (see "via InsertBlogName" comments) but news sites etc. I tend to get lazy.
I read Slashdot, Plastic and MP3.com news pretty much every day digging for digital media related rants/posts. Plastic also has a lot of general interest posts...
I think the "Null Device get's all his links from MetaFilter" comment was quite telling of the blog community. A massive section of what gets posted, gets posted by nearly everyone. We're seeing in sites like MetaFilter and Plastic a general list of current news items that the majority of people are interested in. Those topics that interest spread. Those that are boring remain where they are, unlinked.
I link to what I'm interested in. As does everyone else.
I often see bloggers asking themselves "why am I doing this" and "i'm still not sure what exactly I want to put into this blog". I asked myself that today but got nowhere. This blog in a snapshot of my web-surfing mind. It's the stuff I saw and read. It's the stuff I did online and want you to know about.
Wow, rant city.