Article

2005-04-29 -Short Attention Span Theater-

"Blog News Service" cometh; is it good for the Rantburgers?

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by someone 2005-04-29 3:52:46 AM|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Rantburg has its own niche quite unlike any other blog I know of. 'Mainstream' bloggers particularly those on the Right are concerned to not be seen as extreme. RB's formula of tighly coupling news and comments and its largely unregulated content make it too edgy for the 'Mainstream' which is why RB is rarely linked to. Another unusual aspect to RB is its strong sense of community. I know of no other blog that comes close. My opinion for what its worth is RB will be an influential model in the future of blogging.

Posted by phil_b 2005-04-29 4:52:49 AM|| 2005-04-29 4:52:49 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 RB is extreme?

Posted by Howard UK 2005-04-29 5:19:11 AM|| 2005-04-29 5:19:11 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 A few observations about the article and idea...

You have to register to post a comment on Simon's blog. Same on CJ's LGF. You can only send email for Instapundit and PowerLine. Wretchard's been down for much of the last 2 weeks. Anyone taking bets about how easy or hard it will be to give feedback? Do they need it? Or are they anointed and their posts stand as prime carve-into-stone content?

To be honest, they're actually proposing something not all that different from The Command Post, I'd say. Been there, done that. If you ever run afoul of Michele's mood, you're toast. She's got issues with certain comment styles. They'll allow some asstard to post the full text of AntiWar & Peaceniks, but go berserk if you say it was asinine, inane, and simply a fuckwit thing to do. Reg Req'd there, too.

RB is, indeed, unique. If those other guys want to post news links and their "value-added" brilliance, well sure, okay. They do that now in a scattered fashion. I heard as much about advertising and business as I did about "News Service".

This, as described, isn't the answer - except, perhaps, to their retirement. If Fred can find a way to involve himself and make real money, well, I couldn't blame him for even a second. Otherwise, they want to wank for dollars, instead of for free. Fine. More power to 'em. Won't mean jackshit to the blogosphere.

RB is 10x more interactive, 100x more instantaneous, 1000x more interesting, and a googleplex more informative.

The Internet's only Interactive News: Rantburg.

Posted by .com 2005-04-29 5:31:01 AM|| 2005-04-29 5:31:01 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Eh. I think you're misreading the announcement, .com. Glenn and the gang are the masthead folks, for credibility and general editorial direction. I don't think what pops up on the site(s) will be substantially their own content.

The interesting things of this new project, or what I can glean from it, are:
(1) This is, I assume, going to be a broad-spectrum news organization. Not just WOT & large-scale politics.
(2) They will have instant MSM credibility because of the big names involved. To the extent that media organizations want to coopt the blog space themselves, they'll attack it, but they won't be able just to ignore the thing.

What this means for a superb specialist site like this one (of which, incidentally, Reynolds has often expressed admiration) isn't clear. Depends on the details, of course. (How much will be original reporting and how much collation&comment, for example?)

(By the way, Wretchard has been posting at his old blogspot site for a while now.)

Posted by someone 2005-04-29 6:35:42 AM|| 2005-04-29 6:35:42 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 If Reynolds lists the 'burg, he must be commenting. You can't read here and not comment. What is his nom d' berg?

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-04-29 6:43:52 AM|| 2005-04-29 6:43:52 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 I see this as a very bad development. This is a for profit corporate effort. When one starts talking money like that, lawyers aren't far behind. And whatever lawyers start, legislators finish. This is the beginning of the end of the Folden Years of the blogosphere.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-04-29 6:54:05 AM|| 2005-04-29 6:54:05 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 All I know is I been reading Rantburg since way before the Iraq war and I like it just the way it is :)

Posted by djohn66 2005-04-29 7:51:49 AM|| 2005-04-29 7:51:49 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 I think Glenn is Fred. You never see them together...

Posted by Seafarious 2005-04-29 9:15:58 AM|| 2005-04-29 9:15:58 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Rantburg is still the best and most comprehensive WOT site out there. The sheer volume and diversity of the WOT articles Rantburgers find boggles the mind, and it can only get bigger.

Posted by Chris W. 2005-04-29 9:42:37 AM|| 2005-04-29 9:42:37 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 I like Rantburg just the way it is, except for the crappy dental plan.

Posted by Steve 2005-04-29 10:01:15 AM|| 2005-04-29 10:01:15 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 Reynolds = Mucky?

Posted by BH 2005-04-29 10:07:54 AM|| 2005-04-29 10:07:54 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 It isn't clear to me what a "Blogge News Service" is other than an attempt to replace, over time, the MSM with their "own" news service. And at some point, the professional journalists weigh in and either imitate it using their superior resources, or infiltrate it and take it for themselves.

I'm happy with Rantburg as well. What I like most (of many things) is "Rantburg U": the fact that someone around here knows a lot about a given topic and is willing to share. Just about every day I get an education in something. That sense of knowledge-sharing is something I find on very few group blogs. I don't know how we did it, exactly, but if we joined the BNS we'd probably lose it. Thanks, but I like the 'Burg the way it is.

Posted by Steve White 2005-04-29 10:08:55 AM|| 2005-04-29 10:08:55 AM|| Front Page Top

#13 Blog News Service? We don't need no stinking Blog News Services!
I've learned more about how the world operates here than anywhere in the MSM. Long live free Rantburg!

Posted by Spot 2005-04-29 10:24:56 AM|| 2005-04-29 10:24:56 AM|| Front Page Top

#14 SW: And at some point, the professional journalists weigh in and either imitate it using their superior resources, or infiltrate it and take it for themselves.

The media don't have superior resources. All they have are journalists - the guys who couldn't make it as English or history majors. The only superior resource they command is from a sheer quantity standpoint, because they do get paid for what they're doing. But the reason we come to Rantburg is not to get vapid commentary from the media. We come here to get well-reasoned arguments that journalists aren't equipped to make.

This is why Rantburg will always have a niche, because with few exceptions, the kind of people who become journalists are too stupid, ignorant, left-wing and anti-American to replicate the kind of commentary found here. The media's prejudices are a kind of secular religion that gives meaning to journalists' lives and that is why they will never give them up. Journalists' superstition and obscurantism are why Rantburg will always have an audience.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-04-29 10:35:23 AM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-04-29 10:35:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#15 Every time I see a .net "innovation", I think, "How is this different from our last innovation?" It seldeom is. For example, a blog isn't really any different from a personal web page, except that it's updated more frequently.

So I'm unsure how this "Blog News Service" is going to be an improvement.

But some of you guys seem to regard it as a threat. What's up with that?

I also find it kinda funny that some of you free-market captialist studmuffins are sneering at the idea of somebody making a profit off this thing.

I wish we had more Rantburg U., by the way. Maybe collected into a single page for easy reference (Rantburg just doesn't have enough pages!).

Posted by Angie Schultz 2005-04-29 10:39:47 AM|| [http://darkblogules.blogspot.com] 2005-04-29 10:39:47 AM|| Front Page Top

#16 No, I am not Glenn. 8^)

As I understood this over at Roger's place, the idea is that the reporting side of the news is to be performed by bloggers around the world, rather than just commentary. This gets rid of the MSM as sole source (and the 'berg has done some pioneering work here, too).

And I also read this as NOT just WOT stuff.

I have been an inveterate blog-aholic for 4 years now. Due to time contraints I've been forced to cut way down on the daily dose. From a time when I religiously followed Instapundit, Daily Pundit, Roger, Rantburg, LGF, Tim Blair, Kim duToit, Michael Totten, Jeff Jarvis, etc.

I'm down to daily following of only Insta and the 'burg with a smattering of Tim B.

Keep up the good work!

Posted by AlanC 2005-04-29 10:42:59 AM|| 2005-04-29 10:42:59 AM|| Front Page Top

#17 I think that it will be interesting to see what develops, and I don't see it as a threat to rantburg or "traditional" blogs --- amazing, we can already think about "tradition" after only a few years of existence!

The internet and the blogosphere is big enough for all kinds of things, and it also self selects, if the new concept is valuable, it will thrive and survive, and if not, it will fold.

I enjoy Instapundit and Rantburg for different reasons and don't see them as being in competition with each other.

It's possible that the "internet news service" will offer an outlet for original news reporting by the "net swarm" of the blogosphere. So far most of that has been done by the net providing the data to truly authenticate (and, generally, debunk) stories being hyped by the mainstream media. PERHAPS there's a way to use the same energy to locate and develop truly original sotires. While the blogosphere has been particularly valuable in controlling the spin from the MSM, it's still been largely limited to reacting to stories originated by the MSM.

Time will tell, but I suspect that we'll still be commenting on Rantburg well into the future.

Posted by Ralph Tacoma 2005-04-29 10:48:49 AM|| 2005-04-29 10:48:49 AM|| Front Page Top

#18 It sounds like an interesting experiment. I wish them well.

Reynolds, Simon, Wretchard, LGF, Hewitt, and Blair are daily reads for me. So's Rantburg. None of that will change.

Posted by Mike 2005-04-29 10:50:28 AM|| 2005-04-29 10:50:28 AM|| Front Page Top

#19 I have some concerns about the "business" aspect of a blog news service. Right now we link and quote freely from other sites' content. Certainly that relationship would change in a business paradigm.

As we're all here appreciating Rantburg, I'd like to say how happy I am to be a part of it. I've made many friends and learned so much the last 3.5 years.

The BlogFather does read Rantburg frequently; he listed us in his ten "must-read" blogs in a survey over at John Hawkins' Right Wing News. We're also read in Iraq, at the White House, DoD, and prob'ly more than one three-letter agency.

Spot just said "long live free Rantburg." I second that emotion, but I'd like to note that RB isn't possible without the long hours put in by our readers, commenters, unpaid researchers, moderators, and one irreplaceable Fred Pruitt. He's currently rewriting the RB code for the umpteenth time. Let's all show Fred a little love and throw some change in the tip jar.

Viva Rantburg!

Posted by Seafarious 2005-04-29 10:55:34 AM|| 2005-04-29 10:55:34 AM|| Front Page Top

#20 "Blogge News Service" Are you referring to Ye Olde Blogge News Service. I remember it well. When I was a boy ..............

Posted by phil_b 2005-04-29 11:07:30 AM|| 2005-04-29 11:07:30 AM|| Front Page Top

#21 Sea, there's a lot more "business" on a few of the big blogs than may be obvious.

Everytime Glenn Reynolds comments on a book he just happens to be "reading", or a product you can buy through - surprise! - an Amazon affilate, he includes a specially coded link to Amazon. If people click that and order the book, he gets a percentage of the sales price. If they click but don't buy, he still indirectly benefits by upping his ad rate.

Fred and Rantburg are a real jewel. Fred's been working overtime to keep this place running. I agree with Sea - hit the tipjar, folks!

Posted by too true 2005-04-29 11:12:28 AM|| 2005-04-29 11:12:28 AM|| Front Page Top

#22 If you look at the bloggie news service as shared infrastructure it makes a lot of sense. Bloggers don't want to spend time redesigning their sites, spell checking, monitoring the forums, dealing with ad revenue. Most of them have other jobs. If this bloggie news service is smart it'll do all of that for them, then combine the ad revenues to pay for it and dole the remainder out to the bloggers involved.

Because of the names involved it will get much more notice in the MSM as well as ad revenue. I think it could be very effective and look forward to it.

Funny thing is bloggers that are mostly linkers (Roger L. Simon, Glen Reynolds) will now be self-linking or will have less to link too. A site like this really needs mostly Thinker blogs to provide content. If they did that they'll be close to the National Review Online site (corner and all) without the paper magazine to shill for.

Posted by rjschwarz 2005-04-29 11:31:31 AM|| [http://rjschwarz.com] 2005-04-29 11:31:31 AM|| Front Page Top

#23 Functional capabilities required for success include:

1) news development or "scooping" capabilities (sourcing from stringers, editing, presentation/writing)

2) a means of capturing user-provided demographic data

3) a platform enabling micro-targeted ads served to users

Unless these guys are developing a new technology platform to enable the above (and other conversation or IM-type functionality), this will be just another version of either Salon.com or Arianna's blogfest. Or another undifferentiated news aggregator.

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-29 12:16:50 PM|| 2005-04-29 12:16:50 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 Without a robust technology platform, the ad revenues will be trivial. Relying on subscriptions didn't cut it for salon or slate and will not cut it for Glenn & Co, either.

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-29 12:19:29 PM|| 2005-04-29 12:19:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 Rantburg has done more to further my political education than any other source of information I have yet encountered on the web. It has also proved to be a wonderful resource for better comprehending the war on terror, other nationsâ foreign policy, and the nefarious doings of the United Nationsâ various sycophants.

And when you spend most of your time in San Francisco, you need all the help you can get.

Posted by Secret Master 2005-04-29 1:13:48 PM|| 2005-04-29 1:13:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 I'm for leaving Rantburg the way it is. Is simplicity is its strongest virtue. Fred is doing a GREAT job with it. BZ Fred!

Posted by Yosemite Sam 2005-04-29 1:24:25 PM|| 2005-04-29 1:24:25 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Fresh, uninhibited, user-friendly, funny. When a man's tired o' Rantburg, he's tired o' life.

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-29 1:31:44 PM|| 2005-04-29 1:31:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 I also count Rantburg as a must read, daily--- both for the sarcasm and the expert knowlege on all sorts of arcane matters--- and I wouldn't have it change for anything. OTO, I would love to be able to be make a jump to where I am being paid for some of my writing, aside from what I do on "The Daily Brief", and so would Kevin and some of the other "Briefers", so we may very well give it a shot. Nothing ventured, nothing gained...

Posted by Sgt. Mom 2005-04-29 1:58:55 PM|| [http://www.sgtstryker.com] 2005-04-29 1:58:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 Everything I ever needed to know I learned ~~in kindergarden~~ on Rantburg.

What I like about Rantburg is the diversity of the readers and commentators as well as their topic knowledge who are willing to share their knowledge (and not treat us like drooling idiots like the MSM does). Also the respect people generally show to each other.

Not to mention some of the humor.

Just go look at the Classics.

Posted by CrazyFool 2005-04-29 2:05:22 PM|| 2005-04-29 2:05:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#30 Let's all show Fred a little love and throw some change in the tip jar.

Just did it!

Posted by Gloper Thang7227 2005-04-29 3:12:28 PM|| 2005-04-29 3:12:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#31 Agreed, CF! I've read RB for about a year and a half now, and comment only at certain times. I have withdrawls if I'm on the road (away from computer) or just busy. I love RB's style (and I peruse most of the above mentioned blogs often). I think there's room for both! Personally, I love RB more for it's "smalltown" feeling and the level of knowledge all of you have. The extreme sarcasm and .com's pics don't hurt, either! Bravo, Fred and keep RB the way it is! I've never in my life even considered giving money to websites or the political parties until 9/11! You all have opened my eyes to the MSM and to the fact that there are some sane people left in this country!

Posted by BA 2005-04-29 3:12:57 PM|| 2005-04-29 3:12:57 PM|| Front Page Top

#32 Rantburg's embedded comments / fisking are one of the major reasons that I choose to get a large portion of my foreign news here.

Yelling at the TV or radio only scares the dog and annoys my wife. RB does the commenting for me and my laughter is neither as scary nor as annoying to the folks around here.

Posted by AlanC 2005-04-29 3:58:09 PM|| 2005-04-29 3:58:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#33 What's to say... I share the feelings expressed in posts above regarding RB. I did not digest yet what the Glen & Co are up to, but agree with Thibaud's assessment.

Posted by Sobiesky 2005-04-29 4:00:44 PM|| 2005-04-29 4:00:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#34 Exactly what AlanC said.

Posted by Shipman 2005-04-29 4:01:06 PM|| 2005-04-29 4:01:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#35 The all things to all people concept (i.e., Blog News Services) is no thing to no people.

We be RB's fool...you wanna piece of this?

Posted by Captain America 2005-04-29 10:38:53 PM|| 2005-04-29 10:38:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#36 One requirement for BSNS is that a reader must be a homo sapien. I don't know where that leaves us RBs.

Posted by Dennis Kucinich 2005-04-29 10:41:30 PM|| 2005-04-29 10:41:30 PM|| Front Page Top

23:43 Yosemite Sam
23:39 Yosemite Sam
23:25 Frank G
23:21 Frank G
23:14 Frank G
23:13 Frank G
23:11 Frank G
23:09 Alaska Paul
23:07 Barbara Skolaut
23:03 Alaska Paul
23:00 JosephMendiola
22:56 Alaska Paul
22:56 Alaska Paul
22:52 Alaska Paul
22:46 JOsephMendiola
22:41 Dennis Kucinich
22:38 Captain America
22:38 JOsephMendiola
22:32 Stephen
22:29 Anonymoose
22:24 Old Patriot
22:21 JOsephMendiola
22:18 Old Patriot
22:16 Stephen