When this newspaper launched its Web site in 1997, it held a seminar at an off-site location for staffers to learn about the Internet. The Sun's first Web editor asked the class to type any subject that came to mind into the "search engine."
How cool, I thought, and typed in the name of my daughter's favorite toy: the American Girl Doll.
To my horror, those words summoned a very graphic porn Web site. I did all I could to throw my body to shield the screen from the newsroom secretary sitting beside me in Internet 101.
Even a few years later, I recall an editor wondering whether the Internet would ever "amount to anything" after I'd written about some Web development.
Obviously, no one's asking that question anymore.
Still, the befuddled "American Girl Doll" phase is roughly where we are with blogs right now.
They've already been anointed the "next big thing," but no one can really explain why. There are more than 110 million of them, but an awful lot resemble the most inane bar-stool conversations put in type, and that's probably unfair to bar-stool conversation. Even folks who pay attention to news would be hard-pressed to name more than a few blogs. Some bloggers have struck it rich or become influential, but they're mostly as anonymous as, say, Larry Page and Sergey Brin were in the late 1990s developing something they called Google.
Not all bloggers, but many of them, link to and ride the backs of other people's work.
Not all bloggers, but many of them, think cursing makes them seem smarter.
So I was intrigued by the possibility of finding some answers in a new book called Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web, published by Vintage Books of Random House.
Sarah Boxer, who was the first Web critic of The New York Times during 16 years as a reporter there, edited the book, choosing selections from 27 blogs that best exemplified the craft. Boxer combed through blogs she liked, blogs those blogs linked to, nominees of various blog contests, and blogs mentioned on leading compiler sites like BoingBoing and Technorati.
Whatever else one wants to say about bloggers, they come up with arresting titles. Among those Boxer chose for the anthology: "How to Learn Swedish in 1000 Difficult Lessons," "It's Raining Noodles," "The Rest Is Noise."
The blogs she ultimately selected, she wrote, often combined two loyalties -- two countries, two languages, two areas of interest such as war and gaming or comics and epics. In fact, that may be what blogs do best: focusing not just on niches, but the niches within niches.
And there were other odd traits that many of her selections shared, she noted: an obsession with superheroes, underwear and the f-word. She acknowledges she wasn't sure whether that was representative of all blogs or just her own preference.
Her book is a provocative introduction to the art form. It's appreciative but not fawning and appropriately restless.
Her description of blog-writing: "Conversational and reckless, composed on the fly for anonymous intimates."
Of blog veracity: "Blogs are loose with their lives and loose with the facts. Many bloggers include 'About Me' pages on their blogs, which are often empty or filled with astrological information and lies."
Of the nature of blogs to preach to the already converted on whatever the topic: "Most bloggers don't care if they leave you in the dust. They assume that if you're reading them, you're either one of their friends of at least in on their gossip, their jokes, or the names they drop. They're not responsible for your education."
Most of the book isn't in her words, but excerpts from blogs -- writing, photos, drawings -- that she considered "bloggy to the core."
In a telephone interview from her home in Washington, Boxer said she believes blogs will continue to stretch the bounds of language -- even late-night network TV talk shows seem to have loosened up on what's acceptable. Libel laws may need reshaping, since "absence of malice" doesn't seem to be a guiding principle for many blogs.
She doesn't get the predictions of bloggers replacing mainstream media, since few blogs actually report news, especially on subjects such as government.
"That's a common misconception about blogs," she says. "If they replace anyone, it would be op-ed columnists and critics and people who are basically working off of the news." Many of the political blogs become "echo chambers," providing more "breadth than depth."
Celebrity news, on the other hand, is one area where mainstream media have had to not only chase the bloggers' scoops, but also rethink some of their notions about what is news.
"Newspapers are looking at the number of hits that bloggers who write about Britney Spears can get and wondering, 'How do we get a piece of this?' " she says. "They've changed their coverage, but bloggers' authenticity often comes from being independent."
Blogs are often fascinating and perverse in ways that the mass media could never be, as shown by the case of the "dog poop girl" in Japan, who became infamous and identified on the Web after someone posted pictures of her not cleaning up after her dog on a subway.
If journalism is the first rough draft of history, then examinations such as Boxer's Ultimate Blogs are the first rough draft of blog history. The impact of blogs -- economically, but maybe more important, culturally and socially -- we've only begun to see. The real interesting question isn't "ultimate blogs," but "Blogs, ultimately?"
andrew.ratner@baltsun.com
Andrew Ratner, a former technology reporter, is Today editor of The Sun.