Sunday, March 9, 2008

Next Blog

So, If you look at the top of the page, there's that little blue banner. On the left side, you'll find "Search Blog", "Flag Blog" and "Next Blog". So, say you're bored and you want to find some new blogs you're not aware of. "Next Blog" must take you somewhere neat, right? OK, there are a lot of blogs out there, but some percent of the ones you'd find randomly must be worth a look, right?

Even if 10% of them are fun to find that would be OK, wouldn't it? Heck, you can just keep clicking until you find a good one. Gook luck. You'll be clicking for an awfully long time.

First problem: Most of the blogs you'll find aren't even in English! WTF? How dare a bunch of furiners put up blogs in their native tongues. The nerve. Also, you'll find that approximately 99.9% of the blogs in Spanish are devoted to Futbol.

And there's some, like this one, that are written in English by people who don't speak it all that well. I suppose the effort should be applauded, but, booooooring.

30% of all blogs are hosted by 11-year-old girls. They like Hello Kitty. (I've now informed you of all of their content, so you don't need to go look.) Here's one that's essentially an extended text message.

You'll also run across a gajillion blogs that were started, have three posts and were then abandoned.

How about the ones that concentrate exclusively on one subject that's of interest to exactly one person in the entire world?

How about this one? Obsess much? Just for the hell of it, scroll through all 8 posts and look at the highly thoughtful comments. And what's with the kid in the "My Mom Rocks" T-shirt? Kid, your mom is famously dead!

As near as I can tell, most of the Japanese blogs are devoted to poetry. And food. And poetry about food. There might be some poetic food, but that's just a guess.

There are a lot of Christian blogs. Most of these are hosted by 15 year old girls who have outgrown Hello Kitty.

I've just spent the last 20 minutes clicking "Next Blog" in the hope of finding something really cool to tell you all about. I didn't find it.

12 comments:

Eric said...

The Dannielynn blog asked me to "lave comments." I don't understand. I should clean up my language? I should clean up any spelling errors? I should write comments while I'm in the shower? (Wouldn't that damage my computer unless I had one of those expensive environment-proof laptops?)

I'm confused. Maybe there's a spelling mistake, and the blog's creator left out a letter. Hm. "Slave comments"? It didn't seem like an S&M site.

I don't know. I just don't know.

Whenever I've tried to use the "next blog" button to explore, I always end up dead-ending at a "how to make money with links"-type blog that doesn't have the blogspot titlebar and therefore has no "next blog" function. The text on these pages is always identical, but the fonts and layout are sometimes different. This dead-end always happens within 3 clicks, like an inevitable "whammy" on that old game show, or a bullet in the chamber in Russian Roulette.

Nathan said...

Eric,

Aren't you supposed to be vacuuming?

Anonymous said...

i found a good 1 abou pokemon!

Nathan said...

That's so nice for you.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I wish the 'next' thing would have a language filter. Although - I never gained a regular reader nor became one as a result of that function. :P

Although, it's probably a good platform for my new blog about recliners. I could write about reclining mechanisms, compare recline levers, and document chair capacity and reliability. On Fridays I could have an upholstery of the week feature.

Would you guys come visit it?

Nathan said...

Jeri,

That depends on what kind of seat you offer me...and if it ever shows up.:)

Shawn Powers said...

When I was using blogger, getting rid of that bar was the first thing I did. I hated that little bar, it seemed to invade my space, and detract from my (feigned) professionalism. But yeah, I've tried the "next" blog thing. Bleh. Something like StumbleUpon is much better for finding interesting things online. I don't use it anymore either, because I don't really have time -- but I like the notion of rating sites.

Oh, and something snarky about Hello Kitty. I feel too icky for genuine humor, so imagine that I said something really funny. :)

Nathan said...

Hey, Shawn

If I get rid of it, where is my little "sign-in" thingie going to be? It's on the right margin at the moment.

Shawn Powers said...

It will happily live at blogger.com

:)

Nathan said...

First of all Mr. Smarty Pants, how would I sign in if its not there being all shiny right on the page.

Second, I think you gave me the flu.

Crap. I feel like it.

Shawn Powers said...

Add this to your blogroll:

I need this link to log in, move along gawkers.

If you want it shiny, well... learn flash. ;)

Sorry about giving you the Internet Flu. I hope mine goes away soon. :(

MWT said...

Or you can just click through to any of our other blogs and then use the bars there. ;)