With blogs popping up everywhere one wonders about the reliability and the ability for the blogs to go through frequent changes. For instance, an author will write a blog for creative writing purposes. Unlike a book on the store's shelf, he or she can change it at will for all the readers. A book needing further editing after publication requires a second (or third, fourth, etc.) edition and usually indicates itself being a new edition. The reader of the new edition of the book knows it has been updated. The reader of a blog doesn't really know unless the author says so.
This may or may not make the blogs less reliable or credible. While the ability to change them makes for instantaneous second editions, it also lends itself to editing that could hurt the original composition.
Would you want to go and read Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown knowing that the version you are reading isn't the original one that everyone else read? How about a remake of a song? Is it better to hear the original first, or even only the original? Much emphasis and importance is placed on the "original" anything.
On my personal blog, if I update something I've written I will put a note letting my adoring virtual audience that this indeed is a second edition and that the original is available if they want it.
_________
There's also the aspect of blogs (among other Internet pages) being deleted, discontinued, etc. at will. I believe that only keeping them up for a brief period of time (in comparison to total time ever) hurts the composition. J.D. Salinger published The Catcher in the Rye in 1945, if they would have had weblogs then I doubt that the material would still be online better than half a decade later. Yet, the book lives on in print. Salinger is immortalized in Holden Caulfield, who exists on the page forever. The Internet's material is not forever. Virtual Holden would be dead after 61 years online, at least probably.
Personally, I like to write. I like to share my writing online sometimes. But I'd much rather put a passage online than the whole story. I think there are many authors who would agree with my method here.
I think blogs are great outlets for compositions. I think they can supplement traditional composition, not replace it. I don't even think the blog will serve as a reformation, let alone a revolution, of composition. It's just a new outlet…
Books rock. Blogs rock. Books were there first. Books will be there last as well. Mark my words, permanently, online. Forever. Well, unless, ya know, Fahrenheit 451 comes true or mainstream Nazism resumes.
Can't get rid of books, otherwise Barnes & Noble won't be able to overcharge you anymore and would lose business to MySpace and WordPress!
¡Viva la revolución!
thoughtful post that I enjoyed reading. I think nothing will ever totally replace books. I like something to hold in my hands when I read.
Take a look at my site; think you’ll like it.
Blessings,
shirley