TIME's 2005 Blog of The Year? Nadablog.com by Kevin

Anyone remember the energy shot out last year faster than an elephant's fajita-fueled, cold-fusion fart over the big established media's approval of blogs?

I do. It seemed strange. It's like Jeff Jarvis's "all old media is worthless and will die" pessimism-enema blog Buzzmachine. You know the one that for the longest time featured a screen capture of Jarvis on MSNBC? And touted every burp he made on "old media" TV and radio? That one. (My mistake, still features the MSNBC screenshot.)

In 2004 post-election, the megaphone was set on high, broadcasting the opinion that a Blog of the Year wasn't enough; that blogs should have become the "IT" of the year, and that the Blogosphere should have had its rightful photoshoot and cover shot in all it's bare-fanged glory.

It barely registered to the self-deafening that the loudest megaphone for this honor; this designation, this whatever, was the self-promoting blogosphere itself. Then and still, "blog" is a specialized word, unknown to the majority of Americans and the world.

Will there be a 2005 Blog of the Year? Nadablog.com isn't it by the way, in case you were once, twice, three times fooled.

In 2004, I joined millions of others in spending a great deal of time on blogs, reading. I absorbed a lot of political opinion and analysis; though little of it went beyond the Blogging of the Presidency and congressional contests.

It was important stuff, damnit. Indignancy was on the ascendancy and in fact eclipsed the revolutionary activity that WAS taking place and making a change in many people's lifes. Indeed, this oddly simultaneous puling yearning for recognition, and contempt for Time Magazine's blindness did not wane 'til long past the time when the spotlight was off the eventual newly knighted Sir Blog.

In the Dec. 19, 2004 issue, Powerline was 2004's Time Magazine Blog of the Year for its The Sixty-First Minute series of posts with writers and mostly readers tracking Dan Rather and CBS News caught in a memo-mosh.

The Time's piece by Lev Grossman began: "‘… In 2004 blogs unexpectedly vaulted into the pantheon of major media, alongside TV, radio and yes, magazines and it was Power Line, more than any other blog, that got them there."

Also from the article: "What this story shows more than anything is the power of the medium," (John) Hinderaker says. "The world is full of smart people who have information about every imaginable topic, and until the Internet came along, there wasn't any practical way to put it together."