Apples and Oranges

Time published the list of best blogs of 2009. This is firstly kind of weird because 2009 is still in its infancy, but also weird because there seems to be no coherent way that they chose their list. (They also include a list of the five most overrated blogs.)

When you put Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo, both which I would consider more competitors to a newspaper websites, with Andrew Sullivan's more traditionally political blog the Daily Dish. They then throw Google's official blog, which is really more like a way of distributing press releases about the company, into the mix. It seems clear that Time didn't really have any criteria other than that all of these things were on the Internet.

This is a really common mistake that people make. Just because things are all on the Internet doesn't mean that they are comparable kinds of information. Similarly, you wouldn't compare the print version of Auto World with The New Yorker or a student alt weekly. They are different kinds of information and even though they are both distributed on paper it doesn't mean they're comparable. This is what makes me think that old media is doomed. As long as they continue to lump all websites together they can never hope to make the transition to new media.

The other point is that this list of "top blogs" is pretty un-diverse as well. There are a ton of really great blogs written by women and people of color, but they didn't really make it into Time's list. Mainstream media can't realize the value of including diversity in media, and this may become another reason why these media companies may fail. One of the great things about the Internet is that more voices are added into the mix than the constraints of print costs could allow. But Time doesn't seem to acknowledge that.