Blogs: The Sequel

The second in my vast internet round-up is Kotaku. Here we're dealing with another Notebook/Journalism blog trying to get information to the masses, but this time it's specifically related to video games and some general Japanese culture. I'd also say it sometimes slips into more "Blog" territory on the Blood scale, but I'll talk about that a bit later.

The realm of video game blogs seems pretty congested at times. Anything to really set apart a gaming blog tends to be more important, then. The little twist of including Japanese culture and actually have some of the writers living in Japan gives rise to little stories that you don't find anywhere else. Anyone can cover the big name stories in the gaming world. All the effort that takes is waiting for the press releases to be e-mailed in and writing up a report on it. I know this from experience; I worked on a site for video game news at one time. But to have little stories like this takes that little bit of extra zing to put it ahead of the pack. It doesn't have that much significance in the big picture, but to people who are really into the culture as well as the industry (me) it's that bit of charm that really sells it.

I'd also like to point out that there is a degree of professionalism that goes into Kotaku. The editor, Brian Crecente, writes professionally for Rocky Mountain News. In addition, it's a member of Gawker Media, a professional company based around blogs.

I think it's great to get that professional, world-wide touch and still hit the little things that matter like Mario towels. You get the news and a little flavor to go with it, which makes it stand out from the crowd. It also seems to be one of the most linked gaming blogs in my experience, so it must be doing something right.