Species of a new genre

There seems to be an agreement among the academic community that individual blogs have become a new writing genre. A young genre still in formation and evolving at full speed.

I would suggest something else. I have the feeling that collective, thematic and news blogs are emerging as differentiated species within the main blog genre.

Where are each of them leading and differentiating from each other? Interesting question and object of analysis. They are for sure stirring some media hype. For business people and entrepreneurs it means ways and venues of possible big business

In a lively article on the economics of blogging, Wired magazine cites Chris Taylor appreciations of how readers relate to blogs.

"I think blogs are a fundamentally different medium from magazines. Why do we read blogs? We read them for a quick fix. A quick titillating view of someone else's life, a quick political fix, a quick link to something fun here or there. Or maybe lots of little quick fixes. We don't want to sit down and read a magazine-length article on any topic unless we're reading a magazine."

I am no so interested in knowing whether of not blogs will become an industry. What calls my attention is that in Taylor's comment there is an interesting observation about the relation between reader expectations and genre differences.

Food for thought