But the self-referencing thing really gets to me sometimes. Someone writes an article, perhaps announcing something, or reporting on something. Sometimes this is a blogger, sometimes it’s an online version of a newspaper, etc. Then, a bunch of people link it, and link it, and link it. For every original article, there’s ten or a hundred links. Now, on one level, this is simply how people find out about things. But it does seem a bit worthless at times to read the same article, with minor commentary, on ten sites!

And then there’s the clearinghouse sites. Slashdot for computer friendly people, Feministing for feminists (for the most part), etc, etc. Someone writes an article, a bunch of people link it, it gets popular, a clearinghouse site picks it up, even more people link it, ad infinitum.

Let’s reduce redundancy! Let’s link to whole sites and blogs as well as articles. And let’s only link to really interesting things, not to everything that moves. Less redundancy == more information consumed. (I don’t know who I think I’m talking too – the few people who read this probably don’t have the problem! It’s the people who run the big site that are really responsible. Oh, well)

I just couldn’t stand them anymore.

There didn’t seem to be any obvious reason why. The writing is good on both sites and they post about subjects I’m interested in. I read many blogs of far, far worse technical quality.

Jezebel, of course, annoys with their occasional feminist-who-aren’t-us are stupid attitude. But the above-mentioned post was merely the last straw. The real problem? They post too much crap! They post random celebrity photos, aimless, unfocused entertainment commentary, and random semi-feminist ideas, seemingly without any goal. Sure, once in a while there’s a flash of genius, but I don’t have time to wade through the crap to find it. Besides, Feministing links to almost all of their interesting stuff.

wowOwow, on the other hand, is… far too impersonal. The writers are almost (or all they all?) professional journalist/writers, and they seemingly have no idea how to write a blog. Reading wowOwow mostly just reminded me why I can’t stand to read a traditional newspaper or watch TV anymore. They occasionally post something – like the interview with Rachel Maddow – that can’t be found elsewhere, but once again, it’s just not worth the effort.

In retrospect, the trouble with both of these blogs was simply that they posted too *much*. Jezebel posts around, what, 50, 60 posts a day? And wowOwow posts around 30 – I just get the feeling that neither of them can decide what is really important or interesting, so they just throw it out there and let the reader wade through it, just like a news magazine, or the evening TV news does. Put something in there for every kind of reader/viewer, and hope you get enough right to keep people watching. But on the Internet, we can all the options on earth. We don’t have to read anything that is uninteresting.

In other words, traditional publishing techniques simply don’t work on the web! Why do they even try?

(Side note – I wonder if that’s why small volume magazines, i.e. Bitch, some of those women-in-music ‘zines, etc. are having so much trouble? Perhaps they’re still thinking in paper print terms, even when they try to move partly to the web.)

Squeeeeeeeee!

Sorry about that….

Anyway, her site is wonderful, but I have just one tiny little problem:

Jill, I have a raging crush on you, but must you write everything in lowercase? You’re not E. E. Cummings – he was really weird. Lowercase just makes it hard to read, and makes it seem like you’re words are very small and insignificant. Which is not like you at all!