This is a collection of short pieces, some written especially for the book and some reprinted from other sources. The authors have also interviewed a number of the more famous bloggers or other people analyzing the trend. This variety makes it an extremely useful introduction to the phenomenon. It certainly isn't a gripping read, but the ideas are fascinating. This is not a how-to book, except in the sense of explaining some of the capabilities of the format, and exploring what makes a good or bad blog.

Kline and Burstein have a fairly balanced view of blogs, expecting them to be quite significant, but acknowledging that they cannot be expected to creat a new utopia, and that the future is very much still forming. The book is somewhat slanted, but not uncritically, in favor of blogs, perhaps because the authors feel that love them or hate them, they're here to stay. They point out that the purposes of blogging are age-old, although the technology now allows communication on a grand scale.

The book acknowledges that most blogs are personal, i.e., intended mainly for friends and family (although still open to public view), but they concentrate on the publically oriented blogs, especially the political and the business.

Fortunately, having gotten me all gung ho on reading blogs, the book has appendixes giving guidance to various blogs of great general interest.

I recommend this to everyone, especially those who are not currently familiar with blogs. ( )

http://talesofarampaginglibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-is-this-thing-called... ( )