“Re: The National Post, on Weblogs”

A big part of the value of Web logs, for me, is combining deep subject expertise, analysis that has freely acknowledged bias, and the sheer bulk of all the people participating. When I'm trying to find information on contemporary issues, I can find the people who have been there, done that, made that, ate that. Print and online journalism has to, by its nature, limit the scope of any article and the number of articles it runs. The social contract of journalism states that because of these editorial limit, the resulting content will be accurate and objective, or at least state its point of view. The Web log social contract is that accuracy and objectivity are relative, and although accuracy may be a goal, the independence of each outlet also assures that we have to individually establish our own credibility (as bloggers) and assess credibility (as readers).

The reason Dave Winer gets so much attention is multifold: he's a force of nature, he's been around for a long time, he was an ur-blogger, he writes provocative statements, he sticks his neck, and he puts his money where his mouth is. He makes software. He builds specs. He meets with Microsoft. He tells you where the bodies have buried.

His force-of-nature nature, of course, rubs some people the wrong way because he's so far balls out that I don't think the human could perceive his body and his balls in a single sweep of the horizon. But that's what makes him worth reading, too. He speaks his own version of the unvarnished truth, and while I don't always agree with him, he provokes my thinking.