Mark Hurst passes judgement on weblogs as a "business tool". I've known Mark for a few years now, almost always agree with his opinions, and particularly admire his ability to cut through the BS and point out what's really important -- but this time I think he's taking too narrow a view of blogs in general.
I challenge you to look at any of the "doc blogs" in the right hand column and then tell me that they are not valuable places for practicing docs to get information on a wide variety of topics. To me, blogs are extremely valuable -- not as a business tool -- but as a knowledge sharing mechanism. Blogging tools have given these docs an outlet to communicate with their peers in a quick and easy way that adds value to the whole community. It's hard to discount that. You can't reproduce the effect of a weblog on Usenet. There's no way to get the same continuity of viewpoint that you can get from reading a person's blog day in and day out by reading threads on Usenet. Too ephemeral. Blogs do this much better. Take another look, Mark.
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