DISQUS

Well, I would think that Global Voices would be a good place to find "humanity" -- but one would have to click through and actually read a post, rather than simply scan the summaries on the front page.

Gosh.

How about the whole universe of personal blogs? Try, maybe, ample sanity: http://www.amplesanity.com/

I know, I should let this drop. But a combination of the Montana connection and my love for real-people blogging keeps me tapping away at you...

>"I read hundreds of non-tech blogs."

So, Robert -- you *read* hundreds of non-tech blogs?

Or, you *scan* hundreds of non-tech blogs?

To find the 'humanity', one must read.

So I still disagree.

> "Blogs have lost their humanity. Their weirdness. Instead we’ve become vehicles to announce new products and initiatives on."

Well, maybe that's true for the blogs you read, but not for most of the blogs I read. Come back home. Read some Montana blogs. Read some personal blogs. Read some blogs with no ads.

Read some non-tech blogs.

I dare you.

Hey, do you really know of any organizations -- or individuals -- that are "pro-abortion"?

I bet not.

I bet you know of some that are pro-reproductive rights, though.

Or even pro-abortion-RIGHTS.

I think this is a *critical* feature.

I just want to say, you have a very high quality of commenters here. I learn something when I follow the conversation, and I appreciate that.

I can't help but wonder if the "long tail" is relevant here.

When I first heard the idea, years ago, that we might be doing all our work "on the web" and our computers would basically be terminals, I thought that was absurd. I certainly would want all my work right here on my own hard drive.

Then a few crashed. Again. And again.

Now, big business will probably continue to use their own software and keep everything local -- as might anyone who works with confidential information.

But most of us are on the "tail" -- we may do a lot of computing, but it's actually less scary to trust it to Google's servers than our own little desktops and haphazard backup practices. We are online all the time, but not so overwhelmed as you, so a bit slower is OK. And we want that quick connection with friends and family -- documents, photos, get-together plans.

I think Google is winning the tail.

Power. Might I ask, what is this power for? What do you do with it, you A-listers?

I bet most of us blog because we love to write, or we have a passion we want to share, or we think better 'out loud', or we enjoy the contact with other folks who are far away but share some segment of the planet we care about --

So, to reinforce some previous points: tech should be about the ends, not the means. The means should be effortless and as invisible as possible.

And it's not only women who prefer it that way.

I am a non-geek blogger, and see discussions about this constantly -- even though many -- most? -- of the blogs I read are by women, many of them geeks of one sort or another.

I might suggest that Microsoft and other companies solicit the assistance of women bloggers in assessing and designing their products; especially women bloggers who are not geeks. We are likely to be tech-friendly, but not so savvy that our input would be more of the same.