Recent scientific surveys show that if you start a conversation with the remark “Yes, I really like to keep a web log,” there’s a 90% chance it will end with the other person saying “Oh jeez—look at the time, I really have to be going.”

Why the societal disdain of blogs?  Is it because most of them are inane drivel?  I don’t think so.  I think it’s because of all the ridiculous ancillary web sites that have sprung up around them.

Oh, some of them are okay.  Bloglines has made my life easier because it aggregates the RSS feeds of the sites I like to read into one place, letting me know when they’re updated.  It prevents me from constantly having to visit my links page, and it allows other people to subscribe to my own site if they want.  (Kinja.com does the same thing, but I know Bloglines.  I’m friends wth Bloglines.  I’ve worked with Bloglines.  And Kinja is no Bloglines.)

But some of the other ones?  Please.

Blogshares.com. A fantasy stock market where you trade shares of various blogs.  Here’s a thought for all you traders: get out of your parents’ basement, get a job, and buy some real shares.  I hear that Cisco is really cheap at the moment.  (And I’m not saying this just because my own site recently took a nosedive in valuation.  No you shut up.)

The Blogging Ecosystem at truthlaidbear.com/ecosystem.php.  It rates blogs by popularity and places them accordingly in the ecosystem, from “higher beings” to “insigificant microbes.” Newsflash: it’s not an ecosystem, it’s words on a frickin’ screen.  That’s why, if you read Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, you’ll never encounter a line like “And for the last several days I have carefully observed the spotted Dooce.” Furthermore, the site is wrong—because it rated me as a “flapping bird” (don’t say it) even though my fully developed opposable thumbs are about to deliver a knuckle sandwich to whomever is consuming bandwidth with this waste of space.  Use those resources to put up a site with intelligence, social relevance, and thought provoking content—such as, say, a gallery of Carmen Electra photos.

Blogsex.com.  Look, I don’t even know what this site does.  Some sort of online reality show thing or something.  Whatever.  The point is, they dared put “blog” and “sex” together.  One is something you do by yourself, and the other is you do with—well, I guess that depends on your social calendar, but frankly, the whole concept creeps me out.  This is no way to raise the social stature of blogs.

I’m considering starting my own service: Blogcrap.com.  The content will just be a mirror of this own site, so it won’t be false advertising.  And I’ll make a mint.