Kiwi bloggers trying to break mould

By SHELLEY HOWELLS

The new local web log site Public Address is home to four Kiwi web logs (blogs) so far: journalist Russell Brown's Hard News; author Chad Taylor's Muse Lounge; Damian Christie's Cracker and writer Debra Daley's Chant.

Generally, the very word "blog" - appropriately lethargic-sounding - strikes apathy into my heart. Blogs are too often inane, impenetrable and little more than a series of insider jokes and references that leave the casual reader wondering what the hell's going on.

Public Address blogs can be all of the above (sometimes in the same post).

But wait. There's more. It looks good. It works. These people can express themselves in print and sometimes even have something interesting to say.

Part of the appeal is that they are local. The web is bloated with US-based blogs.

A look at Kiwi Blogs, a webring for New Zealand web loggers, may help to explain why Kiwi bloggers are a relative rarity - New Zealanders are not ones to brag.

"Another redundant expression of one person's total banality in a highly intermittent web log format," is how the Half Pie blog promotes itself.

"Inanity of a thirty-something Kiwi chick" is supposed to lure us to Indecisive Days.

Still, there are some good things going for such blogs. They serve as a reminder that everyone else's lives get boring, too.

Blogs may link to a load of cool sites which saves web-trawling time. And they offer a peek into private lives, which is very often a major self-esteem boost.

Blog-surfing is like op-shopping for clothes - hours of tedious sifting through dull, uninspired rubbish in the hope of finding a classic or original. You never know where it will turn up, either.

The afore-sneered-at Indecisive Days quickly wiped said sneer from my face with a sobering account of the author's recent miscarriage.

Most blogs could use a good copy editor or four. Fewer and better words would do wonders.

Which is why photologs, or photoblogs, appeal - pictures (mostly) get to say the thousand words.

The beauty of these is that you don't need to know the local lingo to check out a photo, so lives of non-English speakers become accessible.

Photoblogs is a good place to start exploring. They have nearly 400 registered photoblogs, many of them just as banal as the bulk of traditional blogs but it's, oh, so much quicker to glance at a photo than read a page of type.

Public Address

Kiwi Blogs

Half Pie

Indecisive Days

Photoblogs