Tim Samoff // Weblog (old)

July 27, 2004

Are blogs backward?

(Link via Joi Ito.)

Seth Godin poses the question: Are blogs backward?

Weblogs were designed to be like newspapers. The idea was that people would stop by and read some more every day, and that each post would build on what had come before… and that frequent readers would have no trouble keeping up.

Seth thinks that the first post that someone sees on our Weblogs should be the first and that new (later) entries should come afterwards — like a book.

Seth again:

a lot more blogs should be posted in chronological order, like books. If you’re trying to chronicle something, it makes a lot of sense to start at the beginning, as long as you provide regular readers an easy way to just read the current stuff (That’s what RSS is for, right?). No, this isn’t right for gizmodo. But it makes a lot of sense for someone, say, chronicling her experience in a 12 step program.

Read the rest here.

I tend to agree with Joi’s thoughts:

I think that blogs are creating a new format that people have become used to reading. Regardless of whether it is the most effective format, people are now accustomed to seeing new posts on top, stuff in the sidebar, etc. Granted that many people are reading blogs for the first time, I think that there is too much momentum to make a dramatic shift in the way we present information on blogs without a lot of confusion.

And I think that people who want to know more about a Blog that they might happen across will have no problem digging through the archives in order to get the entire scoop — I mean, I never had a problem anyway.

Posted at 07:47 am

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