And I must admit Mark, I am one of those commuters with an iPod, but I multitask and read while I listen to it.
Unfortunately, the only opportunity I get to read is while on the train and and the bus, but I will take advantage of this time while I can!
It is a shame though, that because I want to get my HECS debt of my back I have no time to actually finish a chapter a day, and all my blogging and commenting on blogs and writing must be done while hidden in the back room at work.
It would seem to me that if anything were to truly kill the novel, it would be a little goblin called Debt.
When I do find one of the elusive and rare people who read in the low socio-economic neighbourhoods I live in, a common complaint I hear from all of them is “I just don’t have time to read anymore” or “I just can’t afford to buy the books”.

So the blog is not the enemy. In fact, the blog makes many things accessible to people who find literature a little out of reach.
Because a lot of Blog posts are short, many people who would not normally have time in their day to read can spare a few minutes for a quick gander at their their favourite blog. Plus near everyone has access to the internet these days, be it at home, work or a friends house.

One thing I would love to see die are those God damned PSPs. I do not want to hear somebody elses freakin’ game played at full volumn in the bus, on the train, and definately NOT in the god damned waiting room!

I agree with Alec – the instant communication between reader & author is a powerful tool, and it doesn’t really exist in print culture – which is, by nature, private. Although, like Alec said, performance and public readings is a little different (but usually without a lot of words between participants ie: reader & listener)

…where was I going? Yes, the community that can be built in the blog world is great, a real positive in the quick-fix online world – I think, Mark is spot on too, with public consumption habits – it’s shifted from books to ipod etc – which suggests the desire for some sort of ‘portability of the private sphere’ I think. We seem to want to cocoon ourselves in information media everywhere we go.

But (struggling here) to get back to the topic, I’m pro-blog, we take the good with the bad everywhere else, so why not in the cyber-world of writing?

As I said I hope I am wrong, I type this surrounded by books, beside a 1970’s portable Olivetti typewriter, while I listen to the B-52s (that one’s for you Alec!) on a record player, next week I am going to see Echo and the Bunnymen at the classic Enmore Theatre. I embrace nostalgia but accept change

Blogging and the Internet aren’t threats to print media (outside of newspapers perhaps –> which are mostly advertising pamphlets anyway, when they aren’t just fear mongering establishment propaganda.) The novel already is the perfect medium for a very long, involved transmission of experience and feeling.

Blogging and other forms of expression arising from the Internet, offer more abbreviated connections in contrast, but what’s interesting is what this new medium might develop as unique characteristics all its own. What becomes possible with this new medium is communal aesthetics and understanding, a responsiveness between author and reader, reader and author, until the distinction isn’t even relevant anymore.

And who knows what else? But for me, the novel is in its prime.

I definately don’t think blogging will ever be the ‘be all and end all’ of literature. The novel will survive, but with a little blog on the side to keep it company.

Technologically, this is a fantastic time in which we live, raw written material can be thrown online, someone around the corner or across the world can comment, suggest improvements, collaborate with music or visual arts. All within a matter of minutes. Print media has its place but it should certainly not consider itself well above new media, because, sad to say, one media has a clear future where the other is questionable.