When I first started reading blogs and then when I decided to actually jump into the deep end myself I was under the impression that blogs; regardless of popularity on Technorati, was about writing about things you were passionate about and hopefully a discussion on posted ideas. After all these two things seem to top any list you find about the how’s and why’s of blogging.

Then last week Louis over at his self-named blog broached a valid question about when do blogs stop being blogs which I followed up with a few thoughts of my own - see .. a discussion .. a wonderful thing.

However this didn’t end the conversation as far as I was concerned - well at least in my own head (ya I know a very scary thought that is ) and since that post I have been watching the posts in the acknowledged leaders of tech blogdom; and I have come to a conclusion. Sites like TechCrunch, Mashable, Engadget and Read/WriteWeb have become the new Press Release outlets for products - whether those products be Web 2.0 software/sites or actual hardware you can hold in your grimy little mitts.

Sure there might be an illusion of discussion because readers provide feedback on the product announcements but the reality of the matter is that they have left the whole philosophy of what blogging is about behind in the dust as they climb the new media corporate ladder. Gone are the interesting posts that made them blogs in the first place - replaced with empty shilling posts that are as lifeless as any old media product announcement.

I keep hoping that with each new rush of posts that I will see the style of blogging that made them popular in the first place but it doesn’t happen and as a result I get closer and closer to unsubscribing.

Conversation Tags: blogs, blogging, shills, product announcements