Friday, June 20, 2003

Follow that blog!

When I'm not ranting and raving myself, I like to read other people's blogs. While many of these folks are published writers, it's the unedited tone of the blogs that appeals to me. Here are a few of my favorites:

Joe Kissell's Interesting Thing of the Day, itotd.com/
Kissell, the author of 50 Fast Mac OS X Techniques (Wiley, 2003), puts up something lengthy and thoughtful every day, from the story of the outlandish castle built by the equally outlandish King Ludwig II to musings about the strange dialect spoken in his hometown of Pittsburgh. Bet you can't read just one...

Deborah Branscum's Buzz, now Buzzword News, and now at www.buzzword.com
Deborah is a media critic who minces no words, but has ground some PR flaks into exceedingly small particles. Her grasp of business journalism and the PR mill that overfeeds it is sophisticated, but her writing is refreshingly plainspoken in a way that reminds me of Jim Hightower or Molly Ivins. See for yourself.

Jeffrey Zeldman's The Daily Report, www.zeldman.com/
Definitely one of the most professional blogs around, Zeldman's daily report on design standards pre-dates blogging (1995) and retains a formal tone. If you are planning to use your blog for business purposes, watch how Zeldman covers the epicenter of online design with authority.

Andy Ihnatko's Yellow Text, www.cwob.com/yellowtext/
Ihnatko was blogging years before blogging existed, with rambling opinion pieces in MacWorld and other Mac magazines that delighted readers while no doubt dismaying editors. Yellow Text, like Ihnatko's columns, reveals him as a homerun hitter--he strikes out about two-thirds of the time but leaves you gaping in awe (or howling with laughter) when he slams one out of the park. [Added Sept. 2004: Yahoo! Andy has finally shed the unreadable yellow-text-on-black-background motif. Maybe he started to read Zeldman...]