Blogging About Blogging

Back in the good old days when I was a creative director instead of whatever the hell I am now, I had one hard and fast rule -- no ads about advertising.

This week, I'm going to break the spirit of that rule by blogging about blogging.

I've been at this blogging thing a little over a year and I have some opinions about advertising and marketing blogs.

First of all, there is a hierarchy. It looks like this:

1. Blogs about ideas.
2. Blogs about things.
3. Blogs about people.
4. Stalinist cults

Blogs about ideas are at the top of the heap. These are blogs that make you think. Whether you agree with the blogger or not, these blogs cause you to reconsider what you're doing and why; make you question assumptions about advertising and marketing; make you see things in new ways.

Next in the hierarchy are blogs about things. Generally, they're about ad industry news, or ad campaigns. They can be interesting if written by a good writer but they're usually not. The writer is most often just an amateur critic posting ads and saying "This sucks" or "This doesn't suck."

Next come blogs about people. These are essentially gossip columns. They are often attack vehicles for malcontents. They sometimes feature "inside stories" which are just people using their connection with the blogger to exact retribution on colleagues, bosses or agencies. The worst of these are written by anonymous weasels too chicken to say who they really are.

My least favorite are the Stalinist Cult blogs. Some venom about these smelly things tomorrow.

New Gizmo:
At the top right, there's a new thing called "Follow This Blog." Click on it and it will do all kinds of nice things including uploading your face, or any other body part you'd like to display. That way, in case you forget what you look like, you can click on TAC and find out. It's reassuring.