Geeky Mom's blog was filled with a plethora of subjects: some personal, some related to family and motherhood, some on technology, education, careers, etc. As some others have mentioned in their posts, I found it difficult to relate to much of the subject matter of the blog. Her blog seems to cater to a particular audience: mothers, people with an intellectual bent and familiarity with technology, with an interest in the mundane and personal.

-I agree with your allegory of a blog as a benevolent dictatorship as opposed to the democracy of discussion boards.  The comment immediately following your post disagrees, and the author of that comment brings up good points which illustrate how blogs can foster discussion (threaded posts)

-WoW talk turned me off

 I really didn't enjoy the "Geeky Mom" blog, but it wasn't because I thought the blog itself was bad.  The problem was that Geeky Mom discussed things that were really not topics of interest for me.  I'm not saying that she should have--Geeky Mom obviously just has her own interests and I have mine.  One example of this: I have a younger brother who enjoys video games, so I've heard of some of them, but it just isn't anything I would ever look to read about, so Geeky Mom's WoW Wednesday entries were not really my thing.  "Geeky Mom" is a blog written for an audience that isn't me, so that's why I didn't enjoy it.

The "Geeky Mom" blog presents a wide range of subjects, from parenting to university politics. The blog itself is not only a platform of thought, but also a daily diary. "Geeky Mom" regales us with stories of daily life, being a working mother, etc. The comments flow from the same river, not making discussion, but affirming or asking questions based on the post.

An important theme in our course discussions is the relationship between authorship and identity.  We have talked about how the internet allows a sense of anonymity for the author.  However, there are many examples of the "outing" an online personna by connecting an blog author to biographical details about a life.  There is a secondary sort of "outing" connecting a blogger's description of a character to an actual person.  A LiveJournal rant about an ex-girlfriend created an enormous amount of drama in my group of friends when they realized her identity.  Our class questioned a previous visitor about her decision to include someone in her travel blog and post pictures without informing the woman.  So I guess I'm raising these questions again...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/world/europe/12germany.html?em

Great NY Times article about copyright, remixing, plagiarism, new genres and new media. 

Why is she selling her book? Has she copyrighted it? Isn’t that hypocritical considering her literary methods and ideology?

Will she get that literary prize? What is the committee considering? Who will lose to her if she wins?

Were there copyrights on her sources? Did she violate any copyright law or is she exploring a gray area?

How are the works that she used as sources fairing, are they popular? Have they benefited from her fame? From people connecting the their work to hers?
 

Like teal, I was amused that both Tim Burke and Geeky Mom talk a lot about video games.  Personally, I find video games hopelessly boring because I just don't care about fighting, completing tasks, or really doing anything in a game.  Then again, I also find card games and board games boring, so that may just be me.  Either way, the mentions of gaming in both blogs were endearing to me.  I remember Anne mentioning at the beginning of the semester that video games could be a "genre" to explore, and I wonder if maybe these blogs make it look like blogging and gaming go hand-in-hand or something.  Well, I do think games have a lot of imaginative potential; I just can't get into them.