Glenn Reynolds rocks!
Oliver Willis, along with a lot of the rest of the lefty blogosphere, has taken to bashing the Blogfather lately for the supposed crime of being a libertarian/conservative and fooling people into thinking he's a moderate. They also don't like the fact that he links to blogs that make vicious attacks on the left, to which Reynolds doesn't really say whether he agrees or not.
These folks just don't get Reynolds. Reynolds primary role in the blogosphere is his personal opinions second, expanding and promoting the blogosphere itself first. He's not called the Blogfather because he was the first big blog. He wasn't. Andrew Sullivan came before him, as did Steven Den Beste and Josh Marshall. What earned Reynolds that title was that no one did more to grow the blogosphere through encouraging and linking to smaller bloggers. Getting readers motivates bloggers, and unfortunately a lot of good bloggers stop blogging because no one is reading. Readers are like fuel. When you post a few things and no one cares, you tend to do something else. If readers write in asking for more stuff, you give them more stuff. Then if you get an Instalanche, you're probably set for life. Wouldn't it be nice if the big lefty bloggers would link to their smaller counterparts? They mainly link to each other in a kind of elitist back-scratching racket.
So Reynolds spends a good 80% of his blog space linking to other posts he finds interesting. If he wrote long comments about everything he posted, he'd be posting more than Den Beste did in his heydey.
As to his ideology, it's not as if he pretends to be anything other than what he is: a libertarian/conservative. He posts a lot of attacks on the right as well when they try to do things to limit our liberties. What's more, unlike the heated, cursing posts written about him, his responses are always gentlemanly and good humored.
I've been reading him avidly since 2002(Sullivan was the first blog I ever read. I discovered Instapunit through Sullivan linking to him). There is no single blogger who is more valuable to the blogosphere, even if one doesn't agree with everything he posts.
So, all my loyal readers, let's give Glenn Reynolds a Francoislanch as a thank you. Read his blog, and more importantly, read the smaller bloggers he links to. I guarantee that on any given day there are at least a few news stories or posts that are interesting and that you'll have a hard time finding anywhere else.
http://instapundit.com/
These folks just don't get Reynolds. Reynolds primary role in the blogosphere is his personal opinions second, expanding and promoting the blogosphere itself first. He's not called the Blogfather because he was the first big blog. He wasn't. Andrew Sullivan came before him, as did Steven Den Beste and Josh Marshall. What earned Reynolds that title was that no one did more to grow the blogosphere through encouraging and linking to smaller bloggers. Getting readers motivates bloggers, and unfortunately a lot of good bloggers stop blogging because no one is reading. Readers are like fuel. When you post a few things and no one cares, you tend to do something else. If readers write in asking for more stuff, you give them more stuff. Then if you get an Instalanche, you're probably set for life. Wouldn't it be nice if the big lefty bloggers would link to their smaller counterparts? They mainly link to each other in a kind of elitist back-scratching racket.
So Reynolds spends a good 80% of his blog space linking to other posts he finds interesting. If he wrote long comments about everything he posted, he'd be posting more than Den Beste did in his heydey.
As to his ideology, it's not as if he pretends to be anything other than what he is: a libertarian/conservative. He posts a lot of attacks on the right as well when they try to do things to limit our liberties. What's more, unlike the heated, cursing posts written about him, his responses are always gentlemanly and good humored.
I've been reading him avidly since 2002(Sullivan was the first blog I ever read. I discovered Instapunit through Sullivan linking to him). There is no single blogger who is more valuable to the blogosphere, even if one doesn't agree with everything he posts.
So, all my loyal readers, let's give Glenn Reynolds a Francoislanch as a thank you. Read his blog, and more importantly, read the smaller bloggers he links to. I guarantee that on any given day there are at least a few news stories or posts that are interesting and that you'll have a hard time finding anywhere else.
http://instapundit.com/
posted by francois at 8:28 AM
<< Home