To me a blog is by nature personal. That doesn’t mean it has to be written by a single person, but that a personal view is taken on a subject.

I subscribe to a lot of blogs, news services etc., mainly through rss feeds, and the ‘Corridor’ is my source of cricket culture. There are numerous sources of cricket stats and the raw information, but I see bloggers as the people to add colour to the topic and the topic’s culture.

Photos from cricket on beach, through to musings on a playing street cricket in Inda or Pakistan, its all grist to a blogger.

1) Ya, I can see that.
2) Yes
3) I was trying to find other views on Bangladesh’s cricket endeavors and I found that you cover a lot of world cricket in your blog.
4) Consistency, content and coverage + unique views.
5) A lot of via rss reader. But good cricket blogs are rare to find. (One was Uebersportingpundit by an Australian (Scott) but it is no longer there)
6)I read anything that is interesting and content worthy.

Well, I know it is a blog, and I blog myself. I tend to read the personal blogs of people I’ve met — including bloggers I’ve met through blogging — and more specific blogs on topics I’m interested in. Diversity is ok, as long as most of the diversity is of interest, and its well written (preferably funny), and the design of the blog is reasonable. There is no reason to read a poorly designed blog; generally someone else will say something similar on a pretty page.

I forget exactly how I found my way here, but I think it was a link from Scott’s Ubersportingpundit. I stayed because this blog attracted a high level of commenters, and because (mostly) the analysis was good. Not surprisingly, the content tends to be worse when England aren’t playing, so I tend to just skim posts I’m not so interested in.

Over other websites (usenet/email lists/news etc.), blogs are primarily an improvement on the display, the connectivity with other people, and a filter of dross (depending on where you normally get your news). Compared to a fan site (or a news site), the major content is available without extra clicks, and you can scroll to other posts you missed on previous days. Compared to a message board, the topics are organised by day, so it stays focused, and you can pick out major contributors without as much dross. A blog has the disadvantage of being always current, so old topics tend to be discarded, but perhaps that isn’t a disadvantage — you can always repost an issue and recap the argument to date. And they fit in with all the other people writing on the topic, through link-throughs and track-backs, so there is a sense of a broader conversation going on.

If I was to get theoretical. Ultimately, providing news and entertainment is an issue of sorting content by importance and geography to get it to whoever is interested. Manuel De Landa wrote an interesting book on these kinds of phenomenon, where he pointed out that, the homogenous, stratified heirachical organisation of something (like a media) company, exists as a way of simplifying a complex non-linear problem (such as providing news content). But that, you can also have dynamic heterogeneous networks that achieve the same end, by simplifying the transactions between two parties, and keeping the complexity in the emergent network structure. These de-stratified networks tend to fit themselves, in the first instance, within the gaps of the stratified heirachy (that is, blogs are an enhancement of mainstream content), but that, from that they can evolve into dominant systems, that, in turn may re-stratify (so, instead of global media organisations, we may have thousands of private media companies with one or two geographically based journalists dynamically linking each other - this might need a workable financial model, but it is possible).

Of course it is 2am, so I may be talking completely irrelevant bullshit.

“These de-stratified networks tend to fit themselves, in the first instance, within the gaps of the stratified heirachy (that is, blogs are an enhancement of mainstream content), but that, from that they can evolve into dominant systems, that, in turn may re-stratify (so, instead of global media organisations, we may have thousands of private media companies with one or two geographically based journalists dynamically linking each other - this might need a workable financial model, but it is possible).

Of course it is 2am, so I may be talking completely irrelevant bullshit. ”

Quite so, Russ.

1. Flubbledibble (ask a silly question, get a silly answer Yes I knew this was a blog. I am a geek, after all).

2. No, I don’t blog. I prefer to restrict my online forays to frequently sardonic, occasionally witty, intermittently outraged comments.

3. Umm, can’t remember, which kind of suggests I wasn’t looking for a cricket-related blog specifically. I think I googled something and this place came close to the top of the list, and decided to stick around.

4. I’m not sure I exactly prefer blogs to fansites. I’d echo other people’s comments about the inclusiveness and interactivity of blogs, but what makes me stick around any site is the quality of the writing. One advantage that blogs have over MSM (outside of op-ed pieces) at the moment is that they provide a forum for a person to air their own opinions, and for others to respond. I think that the MSM is rapidly catching on to that though - even the Times has a cricket blog these days…

5. I don’t really read any other sport-related blogs regularly. As a general rule I stick to blogs on science, politics, feminism or godlessness (sometimes all four in one blog!), because these are my passions, and give far more opportunities to be outraged.

6. IMHO all blogs are personal, in that all of the entries a coloured by the personality and opinions of the contributor. But I don’t generally read blogs that only deal with the personal lives of the blogger, because I find them boring, and there’s almost no opportunity for snarky comments.

* Aware its a blog
* Not a blogger, too lazy
* Followed a link probably, found it cool so added to my feeds
* Fans have cricket sites anymore?
* Tons
* Both

Main reason i subscribe to cricket blogs is that I bet heavily on sports including cricket, and I find all the different perspectives and insights fascinating and often helpful in making decisions

1. Blog.
2. Yes.
3. I came here because traffic was coming to my site from yours after you quoted me.
4. You put a lot of thought into, most, of your postings and the subject is close to my heart. Your style is never in-your-face and interesting material is raised from all over the world. I now read your site more than http://www.baggygreen.com.au.
5. I have a blogroll outlining the other blogs I read.
6. Only a couple are topic related blogs with most being personal blogs.

Your blog has an identity and its nature ensures that we return for a fix of cricket.