Ben links to an article comparing blogs to 19th Century scrapbooks, Test: Gleaning, Exchanging and Vernacular Media

It is rare to be able to find such a wealth of social and cultural production with such ease, but worrying that this material is less likely to last than the gummed strips of the 19th Century. The technological ephemerality of this medium means that we will not have the luxury of stumbling across these intimate mementoes in 100 years time. There will be no scrapbooks lying in attics, no photographs enamelled onto tombstones.

I agree, and this is why I think it’s a great idea to have your blog printed and bound, even if you’re the only one who wants a copy. I’m going to do a new revision of my own sometime soon, and am thinking of trying out Lulu.com for the printing this time.

On the notion of blog as scrapbook, I was wondering recently why we haven’t seen a more graphically oriented blogging medium emerge, where entries are created as collage of graphic elements rather than text. Working out the best way to edit/store/transmit such information would of course be difficult [Flash based probably], but I would love to see someone take a crack at it…

…only now I realize that I am probably thinking about it far too literally, and that blogging is already evolving in new visual directions with the advent of services like Flickr. We don’t really need an online replica of a scrapbook [although I'd quite like to see one anyway].