None of which changes my view that the Marmot is required reading. But also check out Dave’s ESL Cafe.

Thanks to many commenters for recommendations as to further blogs to visit. Maybe a subject for a future article – but maybe that will be just for the newspaper, bearing in mind the heat generated by what I thought was a fairly non-controversial introductory article.

I remember now why I didn’t include Popular Gusts in the list. It’s because PG doesn’t have a blog juice commensurate with its worth – thus highlighting what a stupid concept blog juice is.

2. Re: the Marmot’s hole, I suppose it is what it is, and I usually head onto the comment boards there now with my annoyance filters set on “high” — I axe more comments than I publish to avoid the snark, but on the other hand, sometimes good stuff turns up, and some of the commenters offer some real food for thought, if you can have the self-restraint to stop reading after the first twenty or so (once the loudmouths start to circle). That said, I do kind of miss Baeksu. As another person who posts with a link where you can find out who I am, I understand what he means about wanting to defend himself from anonymous mosquito-troll-jerks.

3. I agree that phil should have mentioned the Metropolitician’s blog in his article for the sake of its unique viewpoint/angle/content, despite the surliness of his comment here.

but

4. I stand with Brian: it seems to me also that the blog juice rating at zenkimchi is a bit outdated: my favorite k-blogs are also branching more in the direction of the ones Brian mentioned than the ones on the list (but at least they didn’t still have the yangpa on there). Personal faves are Joshing Gnome, Brian himself, Gord Sellar and the old heavyweight Gusts of popular opinion, which certainly deserved kudos here, too.

James Turnbull: I appreciate what you have to say. In my defense, however, I will say a couple of things. A) When you’ve been blogging as long and as prolifically as I have, you’ve already said a good deal of what you’ve got to say. B) Over time, you may begin to take certain issues much less seriously (in my case, North Korea and South Korean politics in general). C) If there’s one thing I’ve learned through blogging, it’s that I’ve realized I don’t know nearly as much about Korea as I thought I did when I started blogging. D) Large comment sections are both a blessing and a curse.

Don’t get me wrong — I think you have a really good blog going. But I’d be keen to see if you’re still going at the same clip after five years. I blog mostly as a hobby — it’s fun, I enjoy stupid and off-color news, I like posting photos of old buildings, and I occasionally have something substantiative to say. I also enjoy providing a venue for commenters — flame wars and all. If you can find something enriching within all the crap, so much the better.

PS: Don’t worry about “burning your bridges” with me. You’re criticizing my blog, not sleeping with my wife. Oh, and I update my blog list maybe twice a year, mostly on account that it’s a time-consuming pain in the ass (and I’d rather be playing with my template), and I really don’t use it that much since I installed my Korea Blog Aggregator page.

Something I’ve been pleased to see over the past few months, though, is the increased visibility of newer, very entertaining and informative Korea-related blogs. They still don’t have the readership, though, of the big ones but that could change. Still kills me, though, that the “big boys” are considered Big Homonid, (probably the most annoying and annoyingly-designed blog out there), The Party Pooper (who does one half-assed update a month), Orancky (who hasn’t updated in two years), Ruminations in Korea (doesn’t update), Iceberg (rarely updates), Budaechigae, and Cathartidae (who doesn’t even have a blog anymore). Roboseyo, Amanda Takes Off, A Year in Mokpo, and The Joshing Gnome (among others) are some examples of newer, quality blogs that few people ever hear about.

Something also pleasing is the trend away from just combing the newspapers. I think the Marmot, Korea Beat, and Mongdori do good work in putting Korean-language stuff into English. But what is also important is pulling issues together, something Gust of Popular Feeling, The Grand Narrative, and Gord Sellar (among others) do quite well.

Hell, let’s burn more bridges. I think you’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid with Zr5.net and especially PopSeoul too. Rather than having “strong orginal content”, the former mostly just puts up three-line posts with links and pictures and then asks questions to readers along the lines of “What do readers think?” (which is why I stopped writing for it!), and while the owners of the latter are indeed good at spotting celebrities wearing the same clothes, and are very good at providing up-to-date celebrity news, all I can see myself are very short summaries of news articles and then hundreds of comments sounding like they were written by 14 year-olds.

Yes, of course I’m jealous of the popularity of all the blogs I’m criticising. And we’re all entitled to our own opinions, and undoubtedly many people would dislike my own blog. It’s just very frustrating for new bloggers when the same old blogs are invariably presented in lists of “Popular Korea blogs”, even though a great deal aren’t even about Korea, including the Daily Kimchi which you got the orginal idea from!

But this means I have a great deal of respect for people like Expat Jane, who always mentions that her blog is mostly not about Korea even though she’s always high in the list. And I strongly encourage readers to check out blogs in Alan Scully’s list, because there’s a lot of new blogs there exclusively devoted to Korea and with some insightful, orginal, and interesting stuff, but which never get mentioned anywhere.

Also, the Big Hominid is unfortunately no longer blogging.