Third day of rain, this time the thunder and lightning is getting a’going early. Currently up in the hotel room, looking out at the convention center and watching the storm while I work. The weather changes, the sudden rain, the temp in the 80’s, the wind… my allergies are unhappy, but I’m rocking the Claritin and Halls throat drops, so I’m doing fine.
Tonight is my final night here at SXSW 2007, and it should end well. The awards will be announced in about 6 hours or so, and then there will be the closing night party, hosted by Fox, and promising an appearance by Seth McFarlane. Looking forward to the last hurrah, as it were, but it’s festival depression kicking in, as it always does, as once again all the friends I’ve made and been hanging out with will all scatter back to their homes as well, and we’ll have to wait months to a year to see each other again.
Went to a blogging panel this morning, not so much to learn anything new in regards to how one should blog, but more my peers thoughts on blogging in general, and why they do it. What I found on the panel is still a strong belief that print is true journalism, while blogging can be tricky depending on how one defines terms but all agree it’s the ability of the blog to provoke thought and questions that is important. Eugene Hernandez of IndieWire brought up the idea of real, original reporting decreasing while commentary increases, leading one to ponder, well, which is more important?
Symbiotically, you need something to comment on, so original stories are important, but stories need to be questioned or given feedback, and therefore, commentary. Blogging really just offers folks the ability to syndicate their opinions on subjects world-wide as opposed to the year’s past when, say, you would just talk to your co-worker at the office cooler. I think where it gets truly sketchy is when blogs comment on the commentary on other blogs as opposed to the stories, and then you have commentary feeding commentary and that snake eating its tail can only ever be so long.
