Ballroom Dancing

Bloggers Are Now In Charge

Austin Convention Center, Thursday, March 19

Hey, wow. The "Bloggers Are Now in Charge" panel didn't take place in a mother's basement. Ah, stereotype humor. Know what else wasn't that funny? The blogger panel. At the panel's midway point, of the five people down my row of seats, one was on his iPhone, one was checking out the schedule of other panels, one was dozing off, and two were on their laptops (live-blogging the blog panel, perhaps). It's disingenuous to make a blanket statement about blogs, especially when the panel's sample size is four people, but it's probably not too dangerous to say that blogging is just another medium. The panel's only telling moment was when moderator Glenn Peoples asked the panelists, Justin Gage (Aquarium Drunkard), Bill Pearis (Brooklyn Vegan), Robert Duffy (Done Waiting), and Janet Timmins (Out the Other), where they get music. Shows, friends, labels they trust, record store clerks. Shocking, isn't it? Blogs are simply aggregators of information for the lazy (or the busy), another source of info, and good blogs – or at least ones you trust – are simply a filter to save you from sifting through the crap. So no knock against the panelists. It's probably more that the obvious isn't all that exciting.