If you can't say something nice ...

As a good number of folks have noted, the cover story of next month's Forbes magazine features an article titled "Attack of the Blogs."

Seeing as how the article is already being picked apart by the web at large for saying things like "Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob," I thought I'd take the opportunity to say a couple nice things about the piece:

• The article points out that all kinds of blogs are being created each day and in amazing numbers. Of course, this point is made in the very last paragraph, but still. Forbes readers now know, for example, that hundreds of thousands of new blogs are created each day across the web and that this service gets more visitors "than each of the Web sites of the New York Times, USAToday and the Washington Post." Neat!


• A lot of folks have taken issue with a sidebar to the article that includes tips for how companies can Fight Back against the bloggers. But one of the tips is Start Your Own Blog. A fine idea, really. Lots of companies are already doing this as a way to have an authentic voice on the web and to better connect with their users. It'd be a shame if the thought only seemed appealing as a way of Getting Even ... but whatever it takes.


• The publication of the article serves as an opporunity to remind everyone of the excellent work done by the fine people at the EFF in putting together their Legal Guide for Bloggers.
  

And with that I must return to clubbing baby seals so that I might use their skins to publish my slanders.