Rebecca Waters on Blogging in SAIL Magazine

On page 29 of the May 2006 edition of SAIL Magazine you will find a brief written by Rebecca Waters titled "Captain's Blog" - appropriately placed in the "Sailing the Web" section. Rebecca has written a report on the state of blogging in the sailing world. In the piece she cites The Voyage of Windbird, NorthernMagic (loud music), the estimable Propercourse and the one and only Zephyr.

She notes that interaction is the element that distinguishes weblogs from other forms of mass communication...and suggests that this interaction is missing from the sailing space. In a year plus of Zephyr I've recieved hundreds and hundreds of comments from all corners of the world (grateful for each one) but I have to agree...I expected more interaction from a community of storytellers (see post: Sailors are intrinsically storytellers - from a year ago this Friday).

She says sailing blogs are too new to elicit the type of response that other weblogs (such as those on politics and gadgets) might expect. I think that's true...but I also believe that sailors are over served on the Internet by resources like Scuttlebutt and forums like Anarchy, not to mention dozens of hard copy publications. Sailing blogs have yet to provide a unique channel with differentiated value for sailors. We're getting there, but it's new effort with a few kinks to be worked through (comments are certainly welcome ;-)

Kudos to Rebecca Waters (rebecca.waters@primedia.com) for writing what has to be the very first old media article on this new media channel. It's a significant step in the still novel world of those who write and read sailing blogs.