Line 56 Learns "What's Wrong With Blogs"

Demir Barlas, Line 56's fearless -- well, fearless until now -- reporter and editor, finally met his match when he recently found himself in the middle of a character assassination attempt thanks to the blogosphere. It all started when Demir tried to mince words on Nicholas Carr's Blog, Rough Type. Unlike Spend Matters, where conflict is more polite and reader commentary is scarce -- since launching Spend Matters, I've found procurement and operations professionals incredibly shy when it comes to commenting on posts -- Rough Type is a far less friendly corner of the blogosphere, especially when it comes to reader commentary. Needless to say, I felt for Demir as I read his piece.

I do hope that Spend Matters can change his conclusion about the nature of blogs. Unlike Carr's corner of the virtual universe, I think he would find that there is room for gray in the otherwise "black-and-white blogosphere," at least here. And Demir, if you're serious about defending yourself against Carr's posse, I'm sure we could scrounge together some firearms and can goods if you'd like to jointly mount a sustainable campaign against them. Trust me, procurement and operations folk are far more burley that those trash-talking, Carr-Cult IT wussies. And I'm sure we could bring in our military campaign on budget, unlike those jokers.

- Jason Busch